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There was a time when showing up to Target Field was simply part of being a Twins fan. That relationship has changed. The 2025 trade deadline fire sale damaged whatever goodwill remained between the Pohlad family and a frustrated fan base. Minnesota traded 11 players in roughly 96 hours, cutting approximately $26 million from the payroll while ownership was exploring a potential sale of the franchise. The result was a baseball operation that looked less interested in winning in 2025 than in preparing for an uncertain future.
Then, the Pohlads decided to keep the team. Tom Pohlad eventually stepped into the main leadership role, replacing Joe Pohlad as the club's chairperson, and one of his central messages was that the organization needed to rebuild its relationship with fans. But here we are at the end of another season, and an important question remains: Have the Pohlads actually earned back that trust? There is a case to be made that they have started the process. There is also plenty of evidence that the job is far from finished.
Attendance Tells the Story
The most obvious place to look is the turnstiles. The Twins entered 2026 with attendance already in a difficult position. The 2025 season drew 1.769 million fans, the lowest total at Target Field since the stadium opened in 2010. In 2026, those totals dropped further, to 1.74 million, down roughly 350 per game. However, the Twins were using a variety of tactics to keep those numbers as high as possible.
The numbers improved during the summer, but they never became anything close to a ringing endorsement from the fan base. By season’s end, the Twins were averaging 21,486 fans per home game, still ranking in the bottom six in baseball. Minnesota did its best to provide cheaper concessions, promotions and ticket incentives designed to get more people through the gates.
Those numbers matter, because attendance is not just an accounting figure. It's feedback. Fans can complain on social media. They can boo. They can stop buying jerseys. They can stop renewing season tickets. Or they can simply stay home. The Twins have been seeing plenty of the latter.
The 2026 Trade Deadline Changed the Conversation
The strongest argument in the Pohlads' favor came in August. After years of payroll criticism and the previous summer's roster teardown, the Twins became legitimate buyers at the trade deadline. Minnesota added Tommy Nance, A.J. Minter, Dean Kremer and Jeff Hoffman, addressing obvious weaknesses without trading away the organization's elite prospects. That was a significant departure from what fans had seen one year earlier.
Tom Pohlad also backed up his words with money. The Twins took on more than $8 million in prorated salary for the remainder of 2026 through those additions, while also assuming significant future commitments. Hoffman has an $11 million salary for 2027, with Toronto covering $3.75 million, and Kremer is expected to receive a raise through arbitration.
Pohlad didn't stop there. He said the Twins' 2027 payroll will be higher, not that ownership merely hoped it would be higher. He also said Minnesota needs to invest in the roster if the organization wants to consistently compete in the postseason.
Fans had spent years hearing about sustainability, flexibility and staying competitive. Now, the owner was directly saying the organization needed to spend more. After the deadline, Pohlad even suggested the organization had "earned some credibility." That may be true. But credibility is not the same thing as trust.
This Is Where Ownership Still Has Work to Do
Trust is not rebuilt with one good month. It's rebuilt through consistency. That means the 2027 payroll has to demonstrate that the Twins are willing to spend enough to address multiple areas of the roster.
So when Pohlad says payroll will increase, the obvious follow-up question is: By how much? A $10 million increase tells one story. A $30 million increase tells another. Something more is in order, if Pohlad wants to accomplish a full-fledged transformation of the relationship between his franchise and their fans—and it sure sounds like he does.
"I understand patience in this market has run out, and I can assure you we have a sense of urgency," Pohlad said Tuesday, at the team's end-of-season press conference. "The work to build on the foundation we laid this year began (Monday). We will assess every part of our organization to get better. We will raise the standard for how we support our players on the field. And we will exhaust our energy to invest meaningfully in this team. Our goal this offseason is to field a roster next spring where making the playoffs isn't a hope, it's the expectation that everybody agrees is realistic."
Money alone will not guarantee a postseason berth. Baseball does not work that way. Ask Steve Cohen and the New York Mets about that. But Twins ownership has spent years asking fans to believe that the organization wants to compete. At some point, the roster has to reflect that belief.
The Young Core Gives Ownership a Chance
There's another reason this conversation is different from a year ago. The Twins have young players worth building around. Walker Jenkins, Kaelen Culpepper, and Emmanuel Rodriguez have arrived. Brooks Lee continues to develop. Luke Keaschall has shown flashes. Several other young players could become important pieces of the next competitive roster.
That gives Jeremy Zoll and the Twins front office something valuable: a foundation. Now, ownership has to decide how aggressively it wants to build on that foundation. The 2025 version of the Twins asked fans to accept a teardown. The 2026 version asked fans to believe the teardown was over. The 2027 version needs to show it.
"We intend to take the offseason and meaningfully invest," Pohlad said Tuesday. "I know everybody in this room wants me to define what meaningfully is, and I understand that that’s a subjective word. But I am confident that [Jeremy Zoll], if he has conviction about a move that’s going to improve this roster and help us accomplish our goals, that this ownership group is prepared to support him with the financial resources he needs.”
For Zoll's part, there does seem to be an understanding that the young core makes it the right time to move—though his focus is on sustainability.
"I think that’s something we’re really excited about, is this idea of a young core that is going to allow us to have a lot of talent on the field that then we can supplement and build around," Zoll said. "How that exactly falls, we want to do everything we can to make significant improvements to the roster this year, but it’s not just about 2027. This is about sustained success; this is about building a perennial contender."
Pohlad sounded more eager—more desperate—to win than Zoll did. That might mean that the owner will, in an inversion of the usual Twins process, be pushing his front office to spend more than it wants to.
Rebuilding trust will take time—maybe more of it than Pohlad would prefer. And it will take action. Fans do not need another promise that the Twins want to be competitive. They need to see what that promise looks like when the offseason begins. They need to see ownership invest. They need to see the front office given the freedom (and maybe even a nudge) to improve the roster. They need to see the organization build around its young core, instead of continually asking fans to wait for the next window.
Most importantly, they need to believe that the goal is not simply to field a respectable team. The goal is to win. Now comes the part where those words have to become reality. The 2026 deadline gave Twins fans a reason to reconsider their opinion of ownership. The offseason will determine how much that opinion actually changes. The Pohlads have begun the process of rebuilding trust. They have not finished it.
What can the Pohlads do this winter to regain the trust of fans? Leave a comment and start the discussion.
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