MINNEAPOLIS — Last week, The Athletic put out a survey for Minnesota Twins fans to express their opinions about the state of the team, on and off the field. It received nearly 6,000 responses, several times the totals generated by our previous fan surveys of other MLB teams.
Twins fans are clearly still passionate about their team, even if the on-field product hasn’t warranted it of late and the franchise’s off-field leadership has repeatedly crushed fan morale. Fans still care about the Twins, despite having reason to question how much the Twins still care about them.
Less than 24 months ago, the Twins won their first playoff series in two decades. Since then, the Pohlads slashed payroll and put the franchise up for sale, only to pull it off the market within weeks of the front office holding a trade deadline fire sale. Now the team is collapsing for the second straight season.
It’s a dark time for the Twins and their fans. But how dark? Here are the results from our 14 survey questions, along with my thoughts on the data.
This makes it obvious why fans were so devastated by the Pohlads pulling the Twins off the market last month. Of the nearly 6,000 total responses to this question, all but 87 want the family to sell the team Carl Pohlad bought for $44 million in 1984.
It’s difficult to get 98.5 percent of people to agree on pretty much anything, but the idea of the Pohlads no longer owning the Twins carries an approval rating that’s probably on par with “pizza tastes good” and “dogs are cute.” And as the responses to other questions show, it’s part of a larger theme.
Not surprisingly, 78.7 percent of voters lay the largest share of blame for the Twins’ struggles at the Pohlads’ feet, which is a recognition of the domino effect created by ownership slashing payroll immediately after the team’s first playoff success in two decades.
There’s certainly plenty of blame to go around, but it’s easy to see the logic. Payroll cuts compromised the front office’s decision-making ability, which in turn gave the coaching staff a less-talented roster, all of which makes it hard to point at the players first.
It’s interesting to note that while the Twins rank 25th out of 30 teams for both runs scored and runs allowed this season, hitters were blamed only in 7.3 percent of responses compared to just 0.4 percent for pitchers. And that’s despite pitching generally being viewed as more of a preseason strength.
In the previous question, Baldelli was assigned the most blame by only 2.5 percent of voters, which matches the picture painted by his individual grades here. Almost half of voters see the manager as doing an average job, and “B” substantially outweighs “D” as the runner-up choice.
In fact, 30.7 percent of responses gave Baldelli an A or B, compared to 21 percent D or F. He’s not seen as their biggest problem, and many readers don’t see him as a problem at all. Baldelli got a failing grade from 4 percent of voters, which the next several questions will show as being very low, relatively speaking.
This is a much different story, with the front office getting 53.7 percent D/F grades, compared to 12.7 percent A/B grades. Voters were almost five times more likely to hand out a failing grade to the front office than the manager, which roughly matches their shares of the previous “most blame” question.
All of which makes sense considering Baldelli is (at least) one additional layer removed from ownership’s actions, whereas team president Derek Falvey now runs both the baseball and business operations following this year’s promotion to the dual role. Falvey has far more power and agency.
This largely matches the results from the survey’s first question, with 98.2 percent of voters giving the Pohlads a D or F grade, compared to 98.5 percent wanting them to sell the team. And that includes 89.5 percent assigning the owners a failing grade, four times the front office and manager combined.
Since you’re probably curious: 0.2 percent assigning ownership an A grade equals a total of nine responses out of nearly 6,000. For some context, there are coincidentally also nine people with the last name “Pohlad” or “Falvey” listed on the leadership page of the family’s business website.
Trade deadline fire sales are almost by definition wildly unpopular, and the Twins’ selloff is no different, with just 10.6 percent of voters giving the moves an A or B grade. There’s a sizable middle ground, with 25.5 percent C grades, but D/F accounts for 63.9 percent, including over 30 percent failing grades.
That’s not surprising, which is why we wanted to include two more specific questions about the Twins’ individual trade deadline moves to get a clearer sense of what fans felt most strongly about, positive and negative.
It says a lot about the overwhelmingly negative reaction to the Twins’ trade deadline in general that by far the most well-received move was eating $33 million to dump the other $71 million remaining on Carlos Correa’s contract while effectively receiving nothing in return.
Nearly half of fans named the Correa salary dump as the Twins’ best move, while 27.9 percent chose the more traditional veteran-for-prospects swap of Jhoan Duran to the Philadelphia Phillies for 19-year-old catcher Eduardo Tait and 24-year-old right-hander Mick Abel.
Chris Paddack going to the Detroit Tigers for 19-year-old catcher Enrique Jimenez — which gets my vote for the Twins’ best deadline value — ranked third with 9.9 percent, which is a surprisingly large number for what was a relatively low-wattage trade.
This one isn’t surprising at all.
Louis Varland (and Ty France) to the Toronto Blue Jays for 22-year-old left-hander Kendry Rojas and 25-year-old outfielder Alan Roden was the Twins’ final July 31 trade, with the news only becoming public after the deadline. It felt like kicking Twins fans when they were already down.
In addition to being a Minnesota native, Varland is a 27-year-old, minimum-salaried reliever with high-90s velocity, and he’s not a free agent until 2031. Trading him is unpopular because he’s popular, but also because there was seemingly little monetary or team control motivation to do so right now.
It’s noteworthy that the Duran and Correa trades rank No. 2 and No. 3 for worst trades after ranking No. 1 and No. 2 for best trades, which is perhaps just the nature of those being the two most high-profile moves involving the biggest names. They elicit strong opinions on both sides.
This is the biggest offseason question following the trade deadline fire sale. Was that the end of the selloff or will the Twins keep shedding salaries and talent? López would have drawn substantial deadline interest if not for his shoulder injury, and several contenders made late runs at Ryan.
López is now the team’s highest-paid player, with $21.5 million salaries for 2026 and 2027. Ryan will make about $10 million in 2026 and $15 million in 2027 via arbitration. Are readers right about how much the Pohlads care about cutting costs and how little they care about winning?
More than three-quarters of voters believe at least one will be traded before next Opening Day. Almost exactly half think both will be traded. And if only one front-line starter is moved, slightly more voters think it will be the higher-paid López (14.1 percent) rather than Ryan (11.9 percent).
Previous questions showed 98.5 percent of voters want the Pohlads to sell the team and 98.2 percent of voters give them a D or F grade. Within that context, “only” 87.8 percent of voters being less likely to support/watch the Twins due to ownership shows the pull of fandom and simply loving baseball.
This figure matches up with 89.5 percent of voters giving the Pohlads a failing grade, which makes sense. If owners are failing a team, fans are less likely to support/watch. But anything short of failing and the impact is lessened, like still eating at a bad restaurant as long as you don’t get food poisoning.
Teams with below-average payrolls need to thrive at developing young (and cheap) players. That was once a Twins strength, and it’s something team officials continue to believe is a strength, but the results have been abysmal the past two seasons, especially on the hitting side.
Not surprisingly, just 11.2 percent of voters have “confidence” in the Twins getting the most out of young talent. And it’s tough to argue otherwise after watching Royce Lewis, Matt Wallner, Brooks Lee, Trevor Larnach, Edouard Julien, Jose Miranda and others stagnate or regress.
And for as much criticism as the Pohlads rightfully receive, the team’s ability to develop young players and get the most out of their talent isn’t dependent on big spending. It’s a largely separate failure, and shines a light on a key weakness not directly tied to payroll cuts.
One fan said: “I believe they can develop pitching, but hitting is a different story.”
One fan said: “I want to believe, but seeing is believing at this point.”
One fan said: “Seems like players perform well in the minors and come up to the majors performing well, but the more time they spend at the majors the worse they get.”
This year’s team appears headed for 90-plus losses for the first time since 2016, when the Twins fired Terry Ryan and replaced him with Falvey. And just 4.8 percent of voters expect a winning record next season, meaning 95.2 percent expect to miss the playoffs for the fifth time in six years.
Beyond the percentage breakdown above, the average predicted win total is 73.5 and the median win total is 70. In other words, most readers anticipate 2026 ending up roughly the same as 2025, which is bleak but also not totally unreasonable given the possibility of more veteran-shedding trades.
One fan said: “75 if they keep López and Ryan. 70 if they keep one. 60 if both are traded.”
One fan said: “Does it matter if no one is watching?”
One fan said: “Don’t care as long as the Pohlads own the team.”
More than half of voters chose Buxton as their favorite Twins player, and why wouldn’t they? He’s a homegrown two-time All-Star having a great, healthy season, and he’s one of the most exciting players in Twins history. And he’s also made it clear he wants to spend his entire career in Minnesota, a rarity.
Correa, Duran and Varland no doubt would have received a bunch of votes if they hadn’t been traded away, and that left Ryan as the obvious No. 2 pick with the also-popular López sidelined for the past three-plus months with a shoulder injury.
Keaschall is just 32 games into his big-league career, yet 8.9 percent of voters already name him as their favorite player. That’s a nod to the 23-year-old being a rare reason for optimism and hope for the future, as well as the fact no one has seen him slump yet, unlike the fifth-ranked Lewis.
One fan said: “I’ve loved other players for various reasons, but the true heart of the team was shown by Buxton. He’ll be the memory of this era and he’s fully earned it, and deserves it.”
One fan said: “Buxton. His dedication and loyalty to this team provide a lot of contrast to the Pohlads’ lack of both.”
One fan said: “Cash considerations.”
Baldelli’s job involves answering questions, often on camera, nearly every day. But it’s much different for his bosses, who have far more power. Falvey typically takes on-the-record questions every month or so, and no member of the Pohlad family has held a media session since last October.
Beyond that, the Twins’ messaging surrounding the trade deadline was an example of making a bad situation worse, with the team sending a Falvey-signed letter to season ticket holders filled with so much empty corporate speak and flowery optimism that it almost seemed AI-generated.
No fan base of a losing, payroll-cutting, deadline-selling team is going to be happy with the messaging coming from upper management. But the Twins seem especially unable to connect to their customers in a meaningful way, with just 5.1 percent of fans saying they’re “adequately transparent.”
One fan said: “Not in the least. They give quotes like they just left the first day of MBA school at St. Thomas. It gets to the point where you’d almost want them to speak less rather than the demeaning jargon they spew.”
One fan said: “I don’t care if they’re transparent, if they win games.”
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photos: Elsa, Stephen Maturen / Getty Images, Paul Sancya / AP Photo)