The Minnesota Twins are one team that may be upset about Juan Soto’s new contract after the New York Mets agreed to a 15-year contract that could be worth up to $805 million on Sunday night. But while small market teams may be concerned over the gap in payroll compared to larger markets, FOX Sports’ Colin Cowherd believes teams like the Twins need to pay up.
Cowherd sounded off on small market teams as he celebrated the Soto contract on his radio show, “The Herd” Monday morning. In his rant, he specifically mentioned the Twins as one team with a billionaire owner who isn’t willing to spend money to bring elite talent to Minnesota.
“Is it better going off to Minnesota and they can’t afford anybody around him?” Cowherd asked. “We saw that with Joe Mauer. That wasn’t good. Joey Votto in Cincinnati. They couldn’t afford him. Okay, we’ll pay Votto, we can’t pay anybody else. No thanks. I’ll take the Mets, the Yankees, the Dodgers, the Braves, Phillies…to me, it’s just more interesting.”
Cowherd’s remarks rightfully put the Twins in the crosshairs. The Twins expanded their payroll with the opening of Target Field in 2010 but weren’t able to field a winning team around Mauer – partially due to Justin Morneau’s concussion that summer which effectively shortened his tenure in Minnesota.
When current President of Baseball and Business Operations Derek Falvey replaced General Manager Terry Ryan in 2017, the Twins spent a little more in free agency, landing Josh Donaldson to a four-year, $92 million contract before the 2020 season and signing Carlos Correa to a pair of deals including a six-year, $200 million contract before the 2023 season.
But Twins chairman Joe Pohlad decided to slash payroll by $30 million last winter and it resulted in one of the biggest late-season collapses in franchise history, blowing a double-digit lead in the American League Wild Card standings before missing the playoffs in 2024.
The Twins are also unlikely to spend this offseason and rumors surfaced on Monday that the Minnesota would listen to trade offers for Correa at this week’s Winter Meetings in Dallas.
But while the Twins are one of the most glaring examples of a billionaire owner reluctant to spend, it’s a problem surfacing across Major League Baseball. The decline of Diamond Sports Group, which owns the rights to the Bally Sports channels, has slashed the broadcast revenue that teams are making and Minnesota is one of seven teams whose broadcast rights are now owned by MLB on a subscription-based streaming plan.
This gives teams like the Mets, who own their own network to broadcast their games, a massive advantage in revenue to spend in free agency. But Cowherd isn’t buying it, doubling down on some of the other small-market owners that have refused to spend.
“It’s not a network’s responsibility to make Oakland’s owner more legitimate, or Tampa’s billionaire owner to spend more money. These guys are just stuffing it in their pocket. All of these owners are billionaires. If Pittsburgh’s owner doesn’t want to spend the money, that is a Pirates issue. [New York] will spend the money. The [Los Angeles Dodgers] will. The [San Diego Padres] will. Atlanta generally does. Houston’s willing to. I’m not going to pander to the organization and the billionaires who don’t want to spend the money.”