The Twins sped out of the 2024 season like a luger on greased ice, rapidly and without agency. They lost 27 of their last 38 games, and for those who doom-scrolled the collapse, it was a wonder they won 11. On Sunday, it ended with a crash appropriate to the pace with which the Twins plummeted from the postseason race, and the grandson of the former owner telling reporters — and, hence, fans — that it’s just business.
Joe Pohlad, the ownership family’s official Twins czar as its Executive Chair, met with reporters before Sunday’s 6-2 loss to the Baltimore Orioles at Target Field and didn’t do a great job of convincing the team’s emotional stake-holders that the Pohlad Family has their best interests in mind. Twins fans aren’t stupid. No one was more aware that their team won the American League Central and three playoff games in 2023, their first postseason victories since 2004, and that rather than invest in the momentum, ownership cut payroll by about $30 million.
“We were headed down a great direction. and I had to make a very difficult business decision,” Pohlad said. “But that’s just the reality of my work.
I have a business to run, and it comes with tough decisions, and that’s what I had to do. I wouldn’t make any other decision.” Cue record scratch, or for the visually inclined, a gif of the H-bomb landing on Bikini Atoll.
He might as well have added, “You just don’t get it.” It was what Twins fans didn’t want to hear, especially f.