Reminder: Unless You Are on the Payroll, You Don’t Have to Defend the Pohlads

There have been many words written in the last week about the stunning announcement that the Twins were for sale. Most of them have been reasonable, clear-eyed assessments of the Pohlad family’s stewardship of the local franchise, warts and all, and what the future might hold.

However.

You can find, on God’s own internet, people debasing themselves in the service of the current owners. These simple, hard-working banker’s sons aren’t so bad, you see. Last year’s embarrassing payroll cut was just pragmatic. The attempt to contract the team a couple decades back is just water under the bridge, like when your mom made dad sleep in the garage for a few months after that one work trip during the Clinton presidency. And you never know, this next owner might be way worse than the so-called cheap Pohlads…

First of all, no. Just no to all of this. The Pohlads pay people very well to do their marketing and PR for them. Whether you’re writing this for a media outlet or on your Tumblr page for the 17 remaining perverts on Tumblr, they don’t need your help, and you will not be rewarded with a seat at the table for it. Have some dignity, son!

The payroll cut is one of the rare times when observers noted something and forecasted the likely outcome of it, and then it unfolded exactly that way. There’s no (valid) counterintuitive way to approach it! What if they spent that $30-$45 million on bad players with worse contracts? WHO CARES, is what. Reopen the schools.

And oh my god, yes, we know, the next owner might be a real piece of crap. Thank you for your wisdom, sensei. Do you have an MBA? Did they name the Wharton School after you? Are you Warren Buffett? Are you really Jimmy Buffett’s cousin?

The next owner is almost guaranteed to be unpleasant! Dudes (and it is always dudes) with that much money tend to be jerks, because who’s going to tell them they can’t be? And how would a nice person accrue that much money in the first place? It's really impolite!

The threat that the new guys might have a team of lawyers working in a boiler room sussing out how to break unbreakable leases is real, but the current ownership would have thrown the franchise down a well for a cashier's check not that long ago. That threat is always there, regardless of who's signing the paychecks, because shareholder value doesn't care about your feelings. The very best you can hope for is a Mark Cuban type who is occasionally good/non-annoying 30 to 35% of the time and ponies up for a competitive product, even if it impacts a sliver of a fraction of his unimaginable wealth.

The way I figure, there are two kinds of people writing this slop:

1. People who are agitating, writing in bad faith, or trying to maintain a working/professional relationship with the Pohlads.
2. People who sincerely believe this to be true.

For the former, whatever, man. Good luck. I hope they let you on the yacht someday. For the latter, I need you to understand that you will not see heaven.

Image license here.