There will always be baseball fans, and baseball fans live across Twins Territory. So there will always be some interest in the hometown nine, but let’s face it: that interest is shrinking. To treat this as just another offseason, then, misses the mark. This organization is in crisis, losing more fans than any other team in baseball, with attendance falling for three straight seasons. Is it interesting who the Twins could target on the free-agent market or what trades they could swing? Sure, I suppose. Though, let’s be honest, I suspect those moves will be just as uninspired as they have been since the infamous payroll slashing after 2023. But Twins media needs to confront more systemic and fundamental questions: when can we expect the Twins to be serious playoff contenders rather than flirting with a Wild Card while two AL Central rivals play in October? What has Jeremy Zoll done to earn the trust of Twins fans to lead this organization’s baseball operations? And when, oh when, will the Pohlad family sell this franchise?
Since the Minnesota Twins’ inaugural season at Target Field in 2010, no other organization has lost more fans coming through their gates each year. Twins attendance has fallen by an average of about 76,000 fans per season (excluding the pandemic-affected 2020 and 2021 seasons), from 3.22 million in 2010 to 1.74 million in 2026: nearly 1.5 million fewer fans through the gates.
This is the clearest data point, but it reflects broader apathy across Twins Territory and a growing rot within the organization. And it isn’t a league-wide problem: MLB drew about 72 million fans in 2026, only slightly below the 73 million it drew in 2010. Nor is it simply about wins and losses; even the 101-win “Bomba Squad” of 2019 drew just 2.3 million. The remaining fans who still follow the club are angry and disappointed with the lack of success in October (just two playoff series wins since 1991) and more losing than winning seasons since their last championship run (19 losing seasons to 16 winning ones), but much of Twins Territory has simply stopped caring, a potentially terminal diagnosis for a professional sports franchise; this is an organization slowly spiraling into irrelevance.
I realize that’s provocative. The Minnesota Twins won’t be contracted this offseason, so it is still relevant which middling reliever they will sign, and whether they can swing a trade for a middle-of-the-order bat. But truthfully, to allow topics like this to be the primary focus this winter feels willfully ignorant.
Let’s state the obvious: the Pohlad family has to sell this franchise. They have been bad stewards of an atrophied franchise. Before an inexplicable promotion to President of Baseball and Business Operations in March 2025, Derek Falvey had missed the playoffs just as often as he had steered the Twins to the postseason. Not to mention, the Twins never got further than the Division Series under Falvey’s tenure. The Pohlad family decided this performance was worthy of a promotion. When Falvey left less than a year later, rather than exhibit any curiosity or engage in any internal reflection, casting out for a leader that could raise this organization to new heights––someone with a track record of taking a broken organization and turning around a culture––the new face of the Pohlad ownership group, Tom Pohlad, decided that Jeremy Zoll, Falvey’s right-hand, would be sufficient to helm the front office. A similar pattern unfolded in October 2025, when the Twins replaced Rocco Baldelli with Derek Shelton, Baldelli’s bench coach in 2019, who had just been fired by the Pirates after going 306-440 in Pittsburgh. All of this is evidence that the Pohlad family does not care about striving for a winning culture or transforming this organization, and Twins Territory has followed the family’s lead: they have stopped caring too.
In the movie Moneyball, Jonah Hill’s character, the fictional Peter Brand, tells Billy Beane: “There is an epidemic failure within the game to understand what is really happening.” I fear the same has happened with Twins observers and media. To treat each losing season and early playoff exit as if it could be fixed by underwhelming offseason moves, year after year, has missed the forest for the trees; while Twins insiders debate which platoon outfielder the Twins could target, we have missed that much of Twins Territory has stopped listening.
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.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5992891/2024/12/13/billionaire-ishbia-brothers-emerge-as-bidders-for-minnesota-twins-source/
I might be wrong, but I believe the Phoenix Suns paid more in luxury tax penalties than the Twins had in salary last year. We can only hope...
