Pohlads Considering New Tactics for Payroll Questions

Today marks the one-week anniversary of the Minnesota Twins’ official elimination from 2024 playoff contention. It also marks a turning point in ownership’s response to questions about the team’s 2025 payroll.

“They’re going on offense,” said a source familiar with ownership’s thinking. “When Joe Pohlad gave those perfectly fine answers to (Aaron) Gleeman in The Athletic, it made everyone even madder for some reason. These commoners don’t understand that we don’t have to answer their questions, much less accurately. It’s disappointing.”

This agitated response to Pohlad’s non-answer has caused the team to explore other avenues to avoid truthful answers. Per multiple sources, these are the options they’re considering:

• Remind everyone that they almost contracted the entire franchise 20+ years ago. “Fun little pastime you have here, would be a shame if something happened to it,” said the front office source. “Can’t complain about payroll if there isn’t one. Just something to think about before your next SELL THE TEAM post.”
• Buy The Athletic. “Everyone is still pretty mad that Gleeman kept asking follow-up questions to Joe,” said the source. “And if there’s one thing the Pohlads know how to do, it’s how to buy a media organization and make it go away. They spent $28 million on Go96 and sold it to a church. Here’s a follow-up question for Aaron: Your boss Joe Pohlad wants to see you in his office. Bring your laptop and any other company equipment.”
• The art of distraction. “When a reporter brings up payroll, we point out the window and say, ‘Look at that,’” said the source. “The reporter looks, sees nothing, turns back, and we’re not there anymore. Stealth, baby.”
• Words that mean nothing. “We’re going to a webinar next week about business jargon,” said the source. “If we can get all our guys to say ‘circle back,’ ‘pencil out,’ ‘core competencies,’ ‘mindful right-size,’ ‘headcount efficacy,’ and ‘managed spend,’ the media won’t know what hit them. Drop a ‘nimble’ or ‘macro topline’ on them and they’ll just go work at Starbucks. We're gonna thread the needle here.”
• An army of sycophants. “Go online for five minutes,” said the source. “People will go out of their way to praise billionaires who are clearly dumber than a bag of hair. The Pohlads have even more money than them! We just have to say that the media is being unfair, and these bozos will start talking about how good our trade deadline was."

When asked if a straight answer to the payroll question would be considered, the source laughed so hard he coughed up blood. Our reporter turned away to call 911, and when they looked back, the interviewee was gone.

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