LastOnePicked

You too, my friend. I would be very happy to be proven wrong. But I probably won't be. Anyone heard from Tom Pohlad during the past month? He's already checked out. Baseball probably bores him.

This is how middling teams remain middling teams - I think this is precisely where Tom Pohlad's offseason indecision is going to leave this team for years to come. The only hope now is to bring in some incredible coaching/development talent. But Tom won't have a clue who those people are in MLB or MiLB.

I feel like Loki the Norse god of mischief oughta start taking some heat for the Twins' failures.

Twins August Record 2025: 11-17 Twins August Record 2026: 9-17 You're right, the season isn't done yet. But it's worth pointing out that the Twins had a worse August after being buyers than they had after being sellers. If the Twins fall 4-5 games short of a WC spot, it's the August collapse that probably made the biggest difference. Maybe it was just the overall quality of the competition.

I think this is a fair take. They've had ups and downs, but they've never put up a real fight in the division. The bullpen sunk them pretty early on, and then starting pitching unraveled. Here's the thing I'm most concerned about: I don't want Tom Pohlad to get a free pass from the media or the remaining fans because of the way he talks about winning. He got "vibe points" for keeping the roster intact and saying they were "going to win." That backfired. They lost future value and they will still end up out of the playoffs. Will he take any blame for this? Does he even understand how his moves cost this team crucial depth - depth from which they could make promotions or deadline trades - in the future? When one person's decisions make an organization worse, it deserves real scrutiny. His only hope at this point is that Lopez and Ryan return to form in '27 and that they can supplement with a free agency splash. Because once Ryan and Lopez are gone, this team's competitive window slams shut again - and it's going to close right when Kulpepper and Jenkins and maybe even Lackey hit their stride. They simply do not have enough promising young arms.

This is the fan loyalty/enthusiasm that the owners have cultivated over the last five years. When you don't care about winning, fans stop caring about attending. Only a new owner or an AL pennant can break the apathy at this point.

Go rest easy. They're a sub-.500 team. It wasn't going to happen this year, even if they had won that one. Hopefully Culpepper and Jenkins learned a few things from their bad at-bats.

I mostly agree, but I know I wouldn't have excluded Baldelli from blame, so I don't feel right doing so even though I like Shelton more. Managers have an impact on momentum, tone and focus. But I think the margins for error for this team were always razor-thin.

Three decisive wins in a row. Peter, your time has come!

I know it's a bit unorthodox, but could we just play the rest of our games against Detroit? There's gotta be someone in the league office we can talk to about this.

Opponents' dugout.

If you put a guy on the mound throwing 50mph or less, I think you should be able to let your fans get the at-bats.

Blowout? Will Jenkins will get a second bomb off a pitch slower than 40mph?

Just out of curiosity, who's going to make these trades with us, and for whom? This team needs elite prospects. They also need starting pitching depth for '27. Trading these guys at this point gets you neither. Let Pete Maki try to work a little magic and go from there.

My doctor wrote me a prescription for a Twins AL pennant but no one can seem to fill it. I took two of 'em as a kid and they cured all my ills.

Make no mistake: There are no morals when it comes to injury. One cannot simply will oneself to orthopedic health." This is 100% true. "He will undoubtedly bounce back, yet again, and perform at a high level next summer." This is 100% wishful thinking. I have hope as well, but there are certainly doubts.

Fair point. I can only speak from my perspective as a Twins fan. For my needs/wants, it was a blunder,

I've taught nonverbal communication a few times in my life. It's an interesting field, and detecting deception through body language is much harder than it looks. That said, Ryan's body language during his last interview was interesting. A few very hard grimaces when asked about the rehab start. He might just be generally ticked off, or he might not like Doogie, but he did not appear at all pleased at the thought of a rehab start. Or of even being asked about his health.

And they had an even worse August than last year, after that total bullpen selloff.

I always try to be fair - I don't know yet if he sucks as an owner or not. What I do know is that he already made a bigger blunder than Joe Pohlad ever did. Joe cut payroll at exactly the wrong time, and that diminished chances to win the following year. Tom ignored huge prospect return on player value, and that will diminish the team's chances to win for years and years to come. Does he understand he made a massive blunder? Is he learning anything from watching how the best MLB teams operate? My guess is no ... but we'll see.

This is actually my biggest fear for the fandom. That fans here won't demand a winner because they really don't believe it's possible to build a winner. So long as Tom answers "tough questions" from favored reporters twice a year and the Twins hover right around .500, most fans will just shrug their shoulders and say, "well, that's good enough for me."

That poll result was this morning. I firmly believe that anything above 5% approval for this ownership is borderline insanity.

They do that by making the kinds of sell-high trades we were unwilling to make. Plus, they have a system of development that far outshines ours. Smarts may not always beat money, but it gives a team a good chance.

I really enjoy the fan opinion polls that Twins Daily offers on a regular basis. But this result is alarming: I don't have access to the trends over time (or do I? - there's a ton of functionality on TD that I probably know nothing about), but I sense that this reflects is a significant improvement since the start of the year. I guess that's just the natural result of team that smashed expectations and is leading the AL Central heading into September. Oh, wait. Well, I guess it just the reflects fan enthusiasm over the team's incredible surge after buying a few relievers at the trade deadline. Oh, wait. Well maybe it's just the result of fans being appreciative that Tom was willing to push for very tough decisions in the offseason, but now those elite prospects the Twins received in trade look like they're ready to contribute in 2027 or 2028. It was sad to lose Ryan, Lopez and Buxton, but they're predictably hobbled during their new team's respective pennant drives. Oh, wait. Honestly, I can't explain this. An approval rating in the 40s?! Fans realize that Tom Pohlad had nothing to do with drafting or developing Walker Jenkins, right? That adding Kremer, Minter and Hoffman were the kind of bare-minimum additions the team certainly could have made in the offseason, all without losing prospects, including a few with high-end potential? The only explanation I can think of is this: Minnesota Twins fans are nice. As in, too nice. As in, too forgiving. "Sure, those Pohlads tried to eliminate the entire team a few years back, and yes, they cut the legs out of our last playoff contender, but that Tom kid was willing to answer some questions back in Spring Training and at least the beers are cheaper at the ballpark." I also realize that there's a large section of the remaining fanbase that likes that Tom pushed to hold on to Ryan and Lopez. He even phrased all this as benevolence - "we owe it to the fans." As though having a player fulfill a contract here were some sort of favor. As though preserving a roster that went 70-92, and losing remarkable potential prospect value, was even in the team's long-term best interests. If you like Tom Pohlad, fine. He's got a square jaw and nothing suggests he's a particularly detestable menace to society. But if you think he and his family pulled the team off the market because they suddenly fell in love with baseball and because they can't wait to build a winner here in Minnesota, then I've got a few vacant office buildings I could sell you. Cheap. Great view. Twins fans, Tom Pohlad has talked a very big game. Right now, that has led to a team that is still one of the ten worst in baseball. Set your standards a little higher and, even if you want to turn the page on past frustrations and welcome Tom into the fold, you really, really ought to make him earn it first.