Tom Pohlad is Saying a Lot, and None of It Lines Up

[NYCTK]

14 minutes ago, old nurse said:

The fans are what they are. That is not faulting the fans for anything. Attendance numbers follow winning. There is absolutely long history of that with the Twins since the 70s. The only 2 exceptions are the openings of a new stadium and when Paul Molitor joined the Twins.  Frontrunning. 

That's just anthropology. Humans go to watch an entertainment product that is entertaining, and if the product has a long history of sucking, they won't be entertained, and thus won't go. 

I don't know why you're acting as if this is unique to the Twins. As if there's some great challenge to the Twin Cities and the Pohlads are just unfortunate souls that can't convince those greedy minnesotan proletariat to come to the ballpark the public paid for. 

[NYCTK]

34 minutes ago, old nurse said:

Once again, Forbes figures it out for each club. For Minnnesota it is easy because they can look at sales tax receipts. $50 a fan. Now remember that revenue per fan is shared so the Twins see 52% of it, thus 9 million 

Do you think there are secondary effects to a team that has a higher attendance? Do you think maybe there are chain events? 

Or is it a very simple, hard formula and that the Twins are right to have cut salary after 2023 because they ONLY lost about $17.5 million in game day revenue and that $17.5M is smaller than the $25M they "saved"?

[Mahoning]

One of the greatest baseball quotes of all time is Tom Pohlad's confession that when they reduced the payroll after a winning season they failed to consider both the short-term AND the long-term consequences. 

[Vanimal46]

21 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Want to put butts in the seats?
Good giveaways, and enough of them so everybody has a chance to get one.
Focus on fan experience INSIDE the ball park. The surveys the Twins have sent out always focus on the parking/transit, safety around the park, entry into the game. Never on the quality of the experience DURING THE GAME.

This. The promo items to get people in the stadium is limited to the first 5-10k fans. For some items it’s limited to which gate you enter in the stadium… Whereas in LA if there’s a Freddie Freeman bobblehead, there’s enough for all 45k people that enter the stadium. 

Here’s 2 free ideas for the Pohlads that would cost them nothing to implement.

- Every ticket scanned into the stadium is automatically entered into a lottery. If the seats behind home plate are vacant by the top of the 3rd, the lottery begins and winners are upgraded to those seats. 

- I remember when the Timberwolves were a god awful team, they ran promos if you bought an upper level ticket and showed up an hour before the game, your tickets were automatically upgraded to the lower level. 

[gman]

3 hours ago, Jeff K said:

I was not a fan of Falvey.  Disliked him as a matter of fact.  But since he has left, the dumpster diving has seemingly increased.  I think that tells us pretty clearly that he was in the ownders shackles in terms of being able to build the team.  Keeping our best players and dumpster diving is pretty much the definitive of taking half measures.  The Pohlad family is simply not believable.

I thought it was always understood from the very beginning that ownership hamstrung the spending anyway and every way imaginable. 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

2 hours ago, old nurse said:

Once again, Forbes figures it out for each club. For Minnnesota it is easy because they can look at sales tax receipts. $50 a fan. Now remember that revenue per fan is shared so the Twins see 52% of it, thus 9 million 

They also share the away games, baseball as a whole was up 10%

[old nurse]

55 minutes ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

They also share the away games, baseball as a whole was up 10%

They also lost the money from the RSNs 

[old nurse]

3 hours ago, NYCTK said:

That's just anthropology. Humans go to watch an entertainment product that is entertaining, and if the product has a long history of sucking, they won't be entertained, and thus won't go. 

I don't know why you're acting as if this is unique to the Twins. As if there's some great challenge to the Twin Cities and the Pohlads are just unfortunate souls that can't convince those greedy minnesotan proletariat to come to the ballpark the public paid for. 

I did not say it was unique to the Twins. Are you reallly that desparate that you have to make up statements 

[old nurse]

3 hours ago, NYCTK said:

Do you think there are secondary effects to a team that has a higher attendance? Do you think maybe there are chain events? 

Or is it a very simple, hard formula and that the Twins are right to have cut salary after 2023 because they ONLY lost about $17.5 million in game day revenue and that $17.5M is smaller than the $25M they "saved"?

They were running deficits, spending in total more than they were making. They chose to cut on the baseball side rather than the operations side.  

[NYCTK]

19 minutes ago, old nurse said:

I did not say it was unique to the Twins. Are you reallly that desparate that you have to make up statements 

 

Quote

They know the fan base it both front running and cheap.

Sorry that I possess basic reading comprehension and made an inference based on your comments. So, you just want to say PEOPLE, in general, are front running and cheap? Color me skeptical, but that being your newly revised statement, how does that change anything? It's still their job to get fans in the doors and maintain interest. 

17 minutes ago, old nurse said:

They were running deficits, spending in total more than they were making. They chose to cut on the baseball side rather than the operations side.  

And now we see a collapse in revenues, fan interest, and they were unable to sell their business for the price they wanted. Seems like they really screwed the pooch. 

Should we continue to blame the fans? 

[old nurse]

2 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

This. The promo items to get people in the stadium is limited to the first 5-10k fans. For some items it’s limited to which gate you enter in the stadium… Whereas in LA if there’s a Freddie Freeman bobblehead, there’s enough for all 45k people that enter the stadium. 

Here’s 2 free ideas for the Pohlads that would cost them nothing to implement.

- Every ticket scanned into the stadium is automatically entered into a lottery. If the seats behind home plate are vacant by the top of the 3rd, the lottery begins and winners are upgraded to those seats. 

- I remember when the Timberwolves were a god awful team, they ran promos if you bought an upper level ticket and showed up an hour before the game, your tickets were automatically upgraded to the lower level. 

There was an older study that after looking at over 2000 games, giveaways increased attendance by 1500 fans. 

Behind a paywall, a story said that returning the kid’s toys in happy meals increased sales by 3.8%. For McDonalds. I don’t know if was sustained, I wasn’t going to pay to find out. 

The Twins do have people working on game day experience and promotions

Senior Director, Game Day Experience: Sam Henschen

Director, Marketing Promotions & Special Events: Heather Rajeski

I don’t know if a senior director has subordinates or just a fancy title 

 

[old nurse]

2 minutes ago, NYCTK said:

 

Sorry that I possess basic reading comprehension and made an inference based on your comments. So, you just want to say PEOPLE, in general, are front running and cheap? Color me skeptical, but that being your newly revised statement, how does that change anything? It's still their job to get fans in the doors and maintain interest. 

And now we see a collapse in revenues, fan interest, and they were unable to sell their business for the price they wanted. Seems like they really screwed the pooch. 

Should we continue to blame the fans? 

The Twins don’t win titles, fans don’t come out. Long history of that since the 70s. It is what it is. Owners don’t want to lose money. That is what it is. Fans don’t come out, owners don’t have money to spend. If the owners spend their own money, soon they will not have any money either. The citizens bonded 350m, the Pohlads lost 500m. I guess they are even 

[TheLeviathan]

22 minutes ago, old nurse said:

The Twins don’t win titles, fans don’t come out. Long history of that since the 70s. It is what it is. Owners don’t want to lose money. That is what it is. Fans don’t come out, owners don’t have money to spend. If the owners spend their own money, soon they will not have any money either. The citizens bonded 350m, the Pohlads lost 500m. I guess they are even 

Is there a TD badge for "worst math ever"?  I've got a post I'd like to nominate.....

[NYCTK]

40 minutes ago, old nurse said:

The Twins don’t win titles, fans don’t come out.

You're doing it again. You're implying that Twins fans are unique. As if the Pohalds have a burden of dealing with those unfair front running Minnesota sports fans, and if the Minnesotans were just nicer to them they wouldn't have to cut payroll. 

 

45 minutes ago, old nurse said:

Owners don’t want to lose money.

They should have sold the team like they said they were going to. No one should feel sorry for them. 

46 minutes ago, old nurse said:

The citizens bonded 350m, the Pohlads lost 500m. I guess they are even

Pohalds should pay back Minnesota that money. Those welfare queens have had it too good for too long and they should really pull their own weight. 

[DocBauer]

Tom reminds me of real and fictional bosses/owners who are in over their heads, and have no clue how a business is run. "We're going to be great because we want to be great! And we're going to cut pay, and some benefits, and ask everyone to work more, but in the end, we're going to be GREAT!"

Tom might be a good business man. And he might make that portion of the team better. I hope that he does! But he's a self admitted neophyte in regards to running a professional MLB team.

Here's a hint Tom, let the baseball people run the team.

Here's another hint Tom, DON'T tell us your family BLEW the offseason following 2023, and that you want to somewhat slowly roll the payroll back up again...which I can actually accept and get behind...and then tell us all you want a smaller payroll than the $122M-ish you FINISHED with in 2025 and expect your team to COMPETE. 

And you're a business man? Hmmm...maybe not a very good one. You want a good product but you won't invest in your family's PRIMARY nutegg? Wow!

Hint #3, when you call season ticket holders and they hang up on you, or don't answer, do you actually understand what's going on?

So let's go back to your proclamation about "going big or going home". So your idea of that is having a roster that would struggle in 2026 because you want to invest yearly and build and want 2026 to be competitive without actual investment is what? Some sort of fantasy only because your WILL will make it so?

Congratulations Tom, you must have found a golden lamp you rubbed the right way.

If you want to ACTUALLY be serious, then give Zole the ability to actually spend the the closing of the 2025 season. How crazy is it that we have to practically BEG for ownership to spend ONLY how they finished 2025?

Even at that, they could still move Larnach for WHATEVER...prospect, RP, utility player...and still add Lowe at 1B to actually build a position player roster that makes sense. You want Hoskins instead? OK. It still makes more sense than stretching Clemens to being an every day player, and allows Bell to be the primary DH.

Lowe is just sitting there with quality production over his career and a 12.2 career WAR and an OBVIOUS hole/need at 1B and Tom thinks everything is OK? And he only costs a couple $M beyond Larnach's deal? (That needs to be moved). OK, screw being super smart, sign Ramon Urias as a utility player for around $3-4M max. He can play 1B/2B/3B and brings a competent glove and bat.

It's a move I would have made ALONG with Lowe if only OWNERSHIP didn't have their head up their ass.

Funny thing, BOTH are still available as solid ML players. ONE, Lowe, really changes the roster and it's depth, and should be a no brainer yesterday.

I don't dislike Clemens. But I would have signed Urias as competion to deepen the bench. And now he's even cheaper. 

But Tom is the ONLY reason why things are quiet. Just imagine, for a moment, Larnach is gone, the Twins sign an ACTUAL 1B with a good glove and solid bat with good splits, and a solid, veteran utility player to compete with Clemens. And they could probably add 1 additional RP option on a flier and STILL be at $120M or below. 

Reminder, the FINAL 2025 payroll ended up around $122M.

So take your "compete" BS Tom! At least Joe gave a damn about the Twins. In the few weeks you've been on the job, you've already proven you're just another speak mouth of your whole family. 

Prove me wrong Tom. Prove us all wrong.

[old nurse]

17 hours ago, NYCTK said:

You're doing it again. You're implying that Twins fans are unique. As if the Pohalds have a burden of dealing with those unfair front running Minnesota sports fans, and if the Minnesotans were just nicer to them they wouldn't have to cut payroll. 

 

They should have sold the team like they said they were going to. No one should feel sorry for them. 

Pohalds should pay back Minnesota that money. Those welfare queens have had it too good for too long and they should really pull their own weight. 

In all of your posting you still have not shown that 350000 more fans would significantly change the payroll.   You can post 100 different things, it still doesn’t change the fact the fans did not come back in significant numbers when they won. 

[old nurse]

18 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

Is there a TD badge for "worst math ever"?  I've got a post I'd like to nominate.....

When the person complained that the Twins got 350m for the stadium and thus owed the fans, my point was the Twins did pay it back.  The poor math was the Twins accountants who didn’t say to quit spending once the debt reached 350m.  Sorry everything has to spelled out for you 

[nicksaviking]

15 minutes ago, old nurse said:

When the person complained that the Twins got 350m for the stadium and thus owed the fans, my point was the Twins did pay it back.  The poor math was the Twins accountants who didn’t say to quit spending once the debt reached 350m.  Sorry everything has to spelled out for you 

Except that debt wasn't from their baseball operations, it was from their other businesses that were impacted by COVID then the poor economy, the Twins just got saddled with the debt because the Pohlad's thought they could pawn it off on to new owners. And they did.

[NYCTK]

22 minutes ago, old nurse said:

In all of your posting you still have not shown that 350000 more fans would significantly change the payroll.   You can post 100 different things, it still doesn’t change the fact the fans did not come back in significant numbers when they won. 

Why would I need to prove something that I'm not even saying? 

My point was the Pohlads are terrible business people, that they killed their own revenue potential with massive cuts, and that they also happened to steal $350 million from the public, and the welfare queens should be ostercized. 

You're out here defending the killing of your favorite team because...god knows why. Blaming the poor attendance on Minnesotans not supporting the billionaires that stole their money and offer them a terrible entertainment product. 

Because prudent financial decisions must be undertaken by billionaires? Idk man. You sound like one of those weirdos constantly clapping for Elon Musk on Twitter. 

 

[old nurse]

22 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Except that debt wasn't from their baseball operations, it was from their other businesses that were impacted by COVID then the poor economy, the Twins just got saddled with the debt because the Pohlad's thought they could pawn it off on to new owners. And they did.

Baseball limits what the teams can borrow money for. You can thank Frank McCourt for that. You can say they lost money in the pandemic on the downtown buildings but please feel free to tell me which those buildings are 

[old nurse]

19 minutes ago, NYCTK said:

Why would I need to prove something that I'm not even saying? 

My point was the Pohlads are terrible business people, that they killed their own revenue potential with massive cuts, and that they also happened to steal $350 million from the public, and the welfare queens should be ostercized. 

You're out here defending the killing of your favorite team because...god knows why. Blaming the poor attendance on Minnesotans not supporting the billionaires that stole their money and offer them a terrible entertainment product. 

Because prudent financial decisions must be undertaken by billionaires? Idk man. You sound like one of those weirdos constantly clapping for Elon Musk on Twitter. 

 

If you say they killed their revenue potential, you would have to show they would make more than they spent to do it.  You haven’t done that. I am not defending anything other than reality.  

[NYCTK]

17 minutes ago, old nurse said:

If you say they killed their revenue potential, you would have to show they would make more than they spent to do it.  You haven’t done that. I am not defending anything other than reality.  

Let's just remind ourselves why we're in this little back and forth: 

Quote

2019 says you are wrong about fans coming back when they are up decisively

You went and said something stupid like this. And now you can't admit that you said something so stupid out of pride.

Just admit you didn't know attendance went up massively in 2019 and I can stop pointing out how stupid all your arguments are. 

[Major League Ready]

On 2/10/2026 at 9:59 AM, Vanimal46 said:

This. The promo items to get people in the stadium is limited to the first 5-10k fans. For some items it’s limited to which gate you enter in the stadium… Whereas in LA if there’s a Freddie Freeman bobblehead, there’s enough for all 45k people that enter the stadium. 

Here’s 2 free ideas for the Pohlads that would cost them nothing to implement.

- Every ticket scanned into the stadium is automatically entered into a lottery. If the seats behind home plate are vacant by the top of the 3rd, the lottery begins and winners are upgraded to those seats. 

- I remember when the Timberwolves were a god awful team, they ran promos if you bought an upper level ticket and showed up an hour before the game, your tickets were automatically upgraded to the lower level. 

I always assumed those seats behind home plate belonged to season ticket holders.  I would not think the Twins have the right to put people in someone's seat if they don't show up by the 3rd inning.  What if they show up in the 4th inning?  This could have other complications as well.  If someone is attending with their wife and 3 children, you have to have 5 available seats together.  Maybe that would not be a problem on a Wednesday afternoon game.  I guess this program becomes more viable the worse they suck so you might be on to something.

Perhaps more to the point, I would not anticipate such a promotion having any impact on attendance as I doubt someone is going to show up for a 1 in 10,000 chance they are chosen.  If the promotion was get 4 seats a family of 4 would have a 1 in 2,500 chance assuming 10,000 in attendance which of course is a very low estimate which would result in a total attendance for the season of 800,000.  

[Major League Ready]

3 hours ago, old nurse said:

In all of your posting you still have not shown that 350000 more fans would significantly change the payroll.   You can post 100 different things, it still doesn’t change the fact the fans did not come back in significant numbers when they won. 

Why doesn't anyone ever do the math in these debates?  Let's see if we can all agree on the appropriate math.  Then, we can speak in much less abstract terms.  350,000 Fans X Average Spend.  I have seen estimates from $55-85 for average spend.  If we use a high estimate, let's say $80, the revenue would be $14,560 after revenue sharing of 48%.  However, you also have to account for player benefits and taxes which would equate to roughly $13M being available to spend on salary.  This assumes the team makes the investment expecting no return on their investment.

Would you agree?

[old nurse]

3 hours ago, NYCTK said:

Let's just remind ourselves why we're in this little back and forth: 

You went and said something stupid like this. And now you can't admit that you said something so stupid out of pride.

Just admit you didn't know attendance went up massively in 2019 and I can stop pointing out how stupid all your arguments are. 

A million seats that were once full stayed empty. That is saying the fans did not come back The 2019 attendance was maybe 100000 more than 2014 and 2015 when they were bad . 

[Linus]

The headline should read “and none of it matters”. I never place much weight on the talk but there are signs that the Twins are trying to do something. Tom got rid of Joe P and then Falvey which are two substantial moves. It makes sense to me that Tom wants an adept business person running the business side and that wasn’t Falvey. The business side has been a mess for years. He may need to move on from Zoll as well but that is probably too much in a short period of time. 

[old nurse]

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

Why doesn't anyone ever do the math in these debates?  Let's see if we can all agree on the appropriate math.  Then, we can speak in much less abstract terms.  350,000 Fans X Average Spend.  I have seen estimates from $55-85 for average spend.  If we use a high estimate, let's say $80, the revenue would be $14,560 after revenue sharing of 48%.  However, you also have to account for player benefits and taxes which would equate to roughly $13M being available to spend on salary.  This assumes the team makes the investment expecting no return on their investment.

Would you agree?

What one player signable for thirteen million would have turned the 24 Twins into a hundred win team? The Twins had to have that kind of team to increase the attendance. The twins had a division leading team for almost all of the 23 season the Twins had  2 Cy Young caliber pitchers. They had only a slight increase in attendance. So division leading in and of itself was not bringing in fans.  

[NYCTK]

18 minutes ago, old nurse said:

A million seats that were once full stayed empty. That is saying the fans did not come back The 2019 attendance was maybe 100000 more than 2014 and 2015 when they were bad . 

Wow. You sure mentioned something that is completely irrelevant. Care to stay on topic now? Or is our conversation done? 

[old nurse]

3 minutes ago, Linus said:

The headline should read “and none of it matters”. I never place much weight on the talk but there are signs that the Twins are trying to do something. Tom got rid of Joe P and then Falvey which are two substantial moves. It makes sense to me that Tom wants an adept business person running the business side and that wasn’t Falvey. The business side has been a mess for years. He may need to move on from Zoll as well but that is probably too much in a short period of time. 

https://www.mlb.com/twins/team/front-office

Does that look bloated to you?

does 12 coaches for 26 players seem like a lot?

[old nurse]

2 minutes ago, NYCTK said:

Wow. You sure mentioned something that is completely irrelevant. Care to stay on topic now? Or is our conversation done? 

The proof of a million empty seats is undebatable and is also called off topic when talking of fans coming back. You are done