Tom Pohlad Is on a Mission to Rebuild Trust. A Critical Juncture Lies Ahead.

[Nick Nelson]

Image courtesy of Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images

You don't build trust by saying things. Well, not on its own, anyway. You build trust by saying things and then doing them. It conditions people to believe what you say. It demonstrates conviction.

To his credit, Tom Pohlad seems to recognize this. The team's alignment of messaging and approach at the trade deadline was seemingly guided by an edict to re-establish trust and credibility. In the weeks and days leading up, general manager Jeremy Zoll was surprisingly open about Minnesota's intention to add impact talent, specifically in the bullpen. 

This was a stark contrast from the vague double-speak we often heard from Derek Falvey, and the team's actions at the deadline also represented a departure from Falvey's hem-hawing front offices in recent years. The Twins did exactly what they said they were going to do, assertively adding three pitchers who performed very well, although it wasn't enough to keep the club from falling out of contention.

All in all, a good first step. But only a first step. Now the real work begins, coming off a second straight losing season where attendance fell to a new 25-year low. At Tuesday's season-ending press conference at Target Field, Pohlad called this offseason "another opportunity for us to put action to words" and adding "I’m really excited about the month ahead."

There's little that can happen from a team-building standpoint before the World Series ends, so I assume what Pohlad was really referencing is the one-month window in November where the offseason is underway, before a CBA lockout shutdown commences at the start of December. If the Twins want to demonstrate some genuine initiative, they need to strike with at least one big move during what is anticipated to be an active stretch of Hot Stove action.

Pohlad insisted, in no uncertain terms, that's the plan. "We are going to be aggressive when free agency starts," he told reporters. Follow through on that, and he'll have another drop in the trust bucket. As that bucket fills, rancor toward ownership subsides and fans can once again start to buy in. 

When asked about his expectations for payroll, Pohlad shied away from specifics but ended with some remarks I find interesting: “Let me just say, I have been very vocal about what our ambitions are. I have been vocal, and to some degree critical, of where we’ve been. And so you can take some comfort in the fact that, with payroll, wherever we land is cognizant of both those things and will be commensurate with what we’re trying to accomplish.”

I'm not sure anyone is going to take comfort in words. Not yet. The Twins have spent too many years conditioning fans to wait for the catch, the qualifier or the retreat. Pohlad has correctly identified that rebuilding trust requires breaking that cycle, and the trade deadline offered a promising start.

Now comes a much bigger test. If the Twins are truly ambitious about restoring credibility and building a winner, November presents their first real opportunity to prove it. Pohlad has said they will be aggressive. He has said payroll will reflect their ambitions. At this particular moment, matching those words with action would carry weight well beyond whatever player they acquire or dollars they spend. It would give fans another reason to believe that, when this version of Twins ownership tells them something, they can actually trust it.

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[NYCTK]

The words that come out of his mouth are worth less than the dirt underneath my shoes. 

The only words he can say that would make me happy is that the Pohalds are selling their entire ownership stake in the organization. Anything else is marketing and bloviating. 

[thelanges5]

2027 FA list is not that deep. Let’s hope they spend wisely. Four years ago with the pending lockout the FAs went quickly. 
 

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/free-agents/available/_/year/2027

[farmerguychris]

Well - here's his chance.  I know the last name says not to get my hopes up, but its too late for that.  I'm worried the lock out will be too easy to blame if they do hold back and don't be as aggressive as I would prefer, but hopefully he recognizes this may be his family's last shot to keep fans that care about his product. 

[LastOnePicked]

Is this forthcoming "meaningful investment" the same as this September's "meaningful games"? What a joke of an organization.

To be entirely fair, there's almost nothing Tom Pohlad could have said today that would get me back onboard. At this point, I'm no longer fair towards this ownership. I like to be fair, but I can't be. Too much nonsense and too many missed opportunities to make something real here.

But I'm not sure I'm wrong. I looked at the pure pablum Pohlad tossed out after Gleeman asked about the payroll specifics:

I mean, that says nothing. It says less than nothing. All it tells fans is that the team continues to be "led" by people who can't even talk like a real human being to other real human beings.

The SKOR North folks reported that Pohlad even used the phrase "a reinvention of Twins baseball." It's a "reinvention" that involves more corporate babble-speak and keeping the yes-man insider society intact.

Don't spend too much time parsing out today's statements, gang. It's clear that nothing has changed and no one is steering the ship. If you have high hopes for 2027, now might be the time to adjust them accordingly. It's going to take a new CBA, a team sale and probably an entirely overhauled organization to truly signal a reinvention of this bottom-tier baseball team.

[nicksaviking]

Right sentiment, wrong year. Where was this the last two seasons?

Unless the team is shooting for the absolute very top of the free agent mountain, going big in a bad free agent class means you're locking in a bunch of veteran players with uncurable warts on to the roster.

But alternately, it's possible Tom did NOT misspeak about being 'excited for the month ahead' as the team perhaps has plans on giving out big deals to players already under contract. Keaschall is an obvious candidate. Some of the other young players, or Ryan, Jeffers or Lopez. 

[Cory Engelhardt]

Well, if he proves it and does sign a legit free agent after the world series, then that's a good thing. 

Obviously there are different levels to "legit." 

If it is an end of game reliever, or a playoff level starter, or a full time position player, then that's a good start.

[mike8791]

Frankly, he doesn't have to wait for November.  What I'd like to see him do in October:

1.  Spend the money to pry a top-rated pitching coach, e.g., the old Twin, Carl Willis.

2. Dump Zoll and hire an established GM who has demonstrated a willingness to think big and is unafraid to take risk.

3. Offer Jeffers a long term contract that reflects market value.

Now these would be a real demonstration of his desire to build a winner!

[NYCTK]

8 minutes ago, LastOnePicked said:

Don't spend too much time parsing out today's statements, gang. It's clear that nothing has changed and no one is steering the ship. If you have high hopes for 2027, now might be the time to adjust them accordingly. It's going to take a new CBA, a team sale and probably an entirely overhauled organization to truly signal a reinvention of the bottom-tier baseball team.

Correct. 

Quote

Let me just say, I have been very vocal about what our ambitions are. I have been vocal, and to some degree critical, of where we’ve been. 

The only ambition of the nepo baby billionaire failson is to increase the value/return of his family's financial asset with minimal capital investment. There's not been any other ambition of the Pohalds since at least 1994. 

 

[MackMan]

This FA class isn't that deep. That Rendon guy I think would slot perfectly in at 1st base though. He could really push Lewis out of the lineup. He may even give Buxton a run for his money for most time spent on the IL. (Please understand this was all sarcasm and I'm not being serious).

[MackMan]

4 minutes ago, mike8791 said:

Frankly, he doesn't have to wait for November.  What I'd like to see him do in October:

1.  Spend the money to pry a top-rated pitching coach, e.g., the old Twin, Carl Willis.

2. Dump Zoll and hire an established GM who has demonstrated a willingness to think big and is unafraid to take risk.

3. Offer Jeffers a long term contract that reflects market value.

Now these would be a real demonstration of his desire to build a winner!

I do like all of these, outside of #3. Do I like Jeffers? Yes. Do I see him with us long-term? No. The reason? We have a plethora of catching options coming up thru the minors right now. Now maybe, we attempt a transition to 1st base for either Jeffers or the prospects coming up. But right now Lackey is showing that he is definitely a potential catcher of the future. Tait is also showing he is starting to turn a corner. With those 2 we could potentially have a really good platoon until one of them shows they're ready for a full-time workload at any level. 

[LastOnePicked]

2 minutes ago, NYCTK said:

The only ambition of the nepo baby billionaire failson is to increase the value/return of his family's financial asset with minimal capital investment. There's not been any other ambition of the Pohalds since at least 1994.

If this were all it was, I could even forgive that. I don't expect an owner to run an MLB team as a non-profit. If money motivates someone to push for success, so be it.

What I can't get over is the utter lack of curiosity about how a winning organization is actually assembled. Pohlads are like a dim kid with a lemonade stand, not being able to understand why no one wants to buy their powdery yellow water.

[MMBoys93]

Factoring inflation into the equation, this was the team‘s lowest payroll since 2014. If there are not plans for $140-$150 million payroll the next couple years, factoring in the same inflation then he’s a liar 

[NYCTK]

1 minute ago, LastOnePicked said:

If this were all it was, I could even forgive that. I don't expect an owner to run an MLB team as a non-profit. If money motivates someone to push for success, so be it.

What I can't get over is the utter lack of curiosity about how a winning organization is actually assembled. Pohlads are like a dim kid with a lemonade stand, not being able to understand why no one wants to buy their powdery yellow water.

They don't even like baseball. I'm convinced the only baseball movie Tom Pohlad has seen is Major League and he's since been motivated by the evil owner that was rewarded with a winning team. Maybe Moneyball too. He just doesn't understand why it's gone so wrong all these years! 

[Whammy]

14 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Right sentiment, wrong year. Where was this the last two seasons?

Unless the team is shooting for the absolute very top of the free agent mountain, going big in a bad free agent class means you're locking in a bunch of veteran players with uncurable warts on to the roster.

But alternately, it's possible Tom did NOT misspeak about being 'excited for the month ahead' as the team perhaps has plans on giving out big deals to players already under contract. Keaschall is an obvious candidate. Some of the other young players, or Ryan, Jeffers or Lopez. 

In my mind there are two very good ways to spend money this offseason.

1) Jeffers QO and hope he takes it. If he doesn't, make him a very competitive 3 year deal
2) Extend the youth. The doom and gloom lockout talk gives the team a unique opportunity here. Several of them got draft signing bonuses in the last couple years and several of them were pretty large, but for players making $800k per season, the fears of a lockout would make the idea of a $5M signing bonus, as part of an extension, even more appealing that it normally would be. 

There's other stuff that could be interesting (extending Pablo for example), but that wouldn't really affect the 2027 books and the Twins don't have as much leverage with something like that than "Point #2" above.

[The Great Hambino]

I'll believe they care about winning a championship when I see it.  I really don't see what Zoll has done to get the vote of confidence he's received.   

But at least he acknowledged that they didn't clear their own low bar of expectations.  At least he didn't try to spin some nonsense with "actually, we did have some competitive games this September."  I'm pretty sure Joe would've.  Sorta like how paying for Correa to go away and not reinvesting the savings was "a baseball decision"

Same offseason plan for me as always: expect the worst, hope for the best

[Saxophone Joe]

lmao - not that I feel bad in the least for TP and "JZ", but dang, tough crowd over here. You're all holding their feet to the fire, to say the least. 

[USAFChief]

First...The level of mindless vitriol from a subset of Twins "fans" is nauseating. 

Second, and on topic. He's said, and done, a lot of good things since taking over. He clearly recognizes there's been a huge erosion of trust in ownership and management. His team acted correctly at the deadline. 

It's a bit unfair, since the FA class is thin, but I'm willing to give them a chance to prove it. 

Let's see what the opening day roster looks like, whenever that is.

[LastOnePicked]

3 minutes ago, NYCTK said:

They don't even like baseball.

Good stuff, but again, that doesn't bother me one bit. Greed doesn't even bother me from an MLB owner. Incompetence is what really gets me.

I actually don't even want there to be more revenue sharing. That's only going to inflate middling player contracts and send more unearned cash to loser ownership groups.

Sure, I'd love a baseball-loving good samaritan saint at the head of this club. But if I can't have that, I want a money-hungry owner who wants to make an absolute stinking fortune off a championship winning team.

[LastOnePicked]

4 minutes ago, Saxophone Joe said:

lmao - not that I feel bad in the least for TP and "JZ", but dang, tough crowd over here. You're all holding their feet to the fire, to say the least. 

Goodness knows local media will never do it. Someone probably should.

But no matter. They never read this stuff. And if they do, they all make very good livings and I'm sure they can console themselves appropriately.

[Mike Sixel]

They did the opposite of rebuilding trust this year. I don't trust organizations that do the opposite of what they should do. This ownership group is meddling and unrealistic, and it cost them great prospects. 

Go look at the free agent list, and tell me how they add ten wins.... And which young players you aren't keeping or playing. 

[NYCTK]

6 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

I'm willing to give them a chance to prove it. 

You be careful Pohlads, the fans are running out of patience. Remember that famous baseball adage, 25th strike and you're out! 

[Saxophone Joe]

10 minutes ago, LastOnePicked said:

They never read this stuff.

Nah. But I'm sure, beyond the attendance numbers, they know full well the general mood of the fanbase is...

[NYCTK]

6 minutes ago, LastOnePicked said:

Goodness knows local media will never do it. Someone probably should.

But no matter. They never read this stuff. And if they do, they all make very good livings and I'm sure they can console themselves appropriately.

Billionaires are notoriously very thin-skinned, so I wouldn't be surprised if they did have someone reporting back comments on posts like this. Need to monitor the plebes to make sure they're not threatening their capital after all. 

James Dolan famously has his team monitoring social media to rate how big a "threat" his patrons are. Bob Kraft similarly runs a social media monitoring office in Gillette Stadium, thought that seems mostly fighting "antisemitism" like we saw with Macklemore. 

[HarmonK03]

He wasn't just speaking to the people on this board and others, he was speaking to all fans.  And his words will resonate with those fans.  He isn't just picking a number out of the air for payroll, who knows  what the market will be like in November if every team rushes to sign free agents before the lockout.  It sounds like he wants to be flexible, so let's see what happens.  It sounds like he recognizes that there has to be action in November and you can't wait for the market to be set like Falvey always did and was left picking thru scraps.

He knows he needs to put a winning team on the field for fans to come back.  My biggest complaint is how is he evaluating Zoll and his performance.  Is he talking to people in baseball that have more knowledge or is he making this decision without any input.  I don't believe Zoll can put together a winning roster even with resources but hopefully he will have a short leash this time.

Yes new ownership could be good, but we don't know that they would just start throwing out a $200m payroll or more.  The Portland Trail Blazers fans aren't real happy with their new owner who is gutting the organization, the grass isn't always greener.  I want owners who can think globally and put the management in place like ARod and Lore did with the Wolves.  I really want to see TP take a step back, I don't want to see the owner out there talking all the time.  He needs to step back and hire a good management team.

[MeleMouth]

59 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Right sentiment, wrong year. Where was this the last two seasons?

Unless the team is shooting for the absolute very top of the free agent mountain, going big in a bad free agent class means you're locking in a bunch of veteran players with uncurable warts on to the roster.

But alternately, it's possible Tom did NOT misspeak about being 'excited for the month ahead' as the team perhaps has plans on giving out big deals to players already under contract. Keaschall is an obvious candidate. Some of the other young players, or Ryan, Jeffers or Lopez. 

The only difference between Lopez, Ryan, and Jeffers and the "veteran players with uncurable warts" available in free agency is that they are already your veteran players with uncurable warts.

[Major League Ready]

15 minutes ago, HarmonK03 said:

He wasn't just speaking to the people on this board and others, he was speaking to all fans.  And his words will resonate with those fans. 

Saying you are going to do something stupid and then doing it does not build much trust with me.  He did a 180 in the middle of a rebuild, decreased spending, and told the fans we just had to be good this year.  He told us no half measures but invested nothing.  I can't believe people believe this BS.  Lower revenue teams have to get value for assets before they expire, and this guy managed to erode virtually every bit of that value.  How does that establish trust?

I tell you would have established trust for me.  Had they acquired Tolle, Arias, and Eyanson and then spent to get one of the top free agent 1B and a couple of good RPs.  I would be OK with the right deal to extend Lopez too.  The next several years would have a rotation of some combination of Tolle / Lopez / Bradley / Abel / Prielipp / Rojas and Matthews.

[MeleMouth]

42 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

First...The level of mindless vitriol from a subset of Twins "fans" is nauseating. 

Second, and on topic. He's said, and done, a lot of good things since taking over. He clearly recognizes there's been a huge erosion of trust in ownership and management. His team acted correctly at the deadline. 

It's a bit unfair, since the FA class is thin, but I'm willing to give them a chance to prove it. 

Let's see what the opening day roster looks like, whenever that is.

I agree and disagree with different parts of what you said, but I can't tell if the vitriol (extreme word) among fans is more mindless and nauseating than the apple-polishing (extreme phrase). What do you think? 

[HarmonK03]

1 minute ago, Major League Ready said:

Saying you are going to do something stupid and then doing it does not build much trust with me.  He did a 180 in the middle of a rebuild, decreased spending, and told the fans we just had to be good this year.  He told us no half measures but invested nothing.  I can't believe people believe this BS.  Lower revenue teams have to get value for assets before they expired, and this guy managed to erode virtually every bit of that value.  How does that establish trust?

What rebuild, Falvey has never trusted the younger players and always valued the league average at best veterans, see Margot and Gallo as two examples.  After 10 years he was going to change because he basically traded away two assets last year at the trade deadline.

[Mike Sixel]

4 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

Saying you are going to do something stupid and then doing it does not build much trust with me.  He did a 180 in the middle of a rebuild, decreased spending, and told the fans we just had to be good this year.  He told us no half measures but invested nothing.  I can't believe people believe this BS.  Lower revenue teams have to get value for assets before they expire, and this guy managed to erode virtually every bit of that value.  How does that establish trust?

I tell you would have established trust for me.  Had they acquired Tolle, Arias, and Eyanson and then spent to get one of the top free agent 1B and a couple of good RPs.  I would be OK with the right deal to extend Lopez too.  The next several years would have a rotation of some combination of Tolle / Lopez / Bradley / Abel / Prielipp / Rojas and Matthews.

Having talked to several casual fans when I was back in Minnesota, no one fell for this. I can't believe anyone is writing that they earned trust this year. Truly mind boggling. Truly.