The Minnesota Twins are battling for the final Wild Card spot in the American League, but they’re also battling some of their fans. A group that has become jaded after slashing their payroll following the 2023 season and blowing up the roster at last year’s trade deadline has spoken by not showing up to the ballpark this season and it has given executive chairman and owner Tom Pohlad a challenge as he tries to win them back.
The first step in the process came when the Twins added roughly $8 million to payroll after acquiring A.J. Minter, Dean Kremer and Jeff Hoffman at this year’s trade deadline. But there’s still plenty of work to do before getting the fans back at Target Field. Adding payroll may be one way to go, but The Athletic’s Dan Hayes also mentioned that the San Diego Padres could be a blueprint the Twins follow to get back on track.
“Pohlad has repeatedly said the Twins’ future payrolls would increase and that the team needs to spend more than $100 million on payroll to compete,” Hayes wrote. “Though it’s almost a certainty the Twins would never approach their $248 million payroll from 2023, Pohlad views the small-market San Diego Padres’ model as a positive.”
The Twins would be wise to follow the Padres' model to win back fans
Twins fans may look at the Milwaukee Brewers or Tampa Bay Rays as inspiration for small-market success, but the Padres could be a best-case outcome. While San Diego has a large population, it ranks as the 30th television media market according to the Sports Business Journal, which is a massive indicator of the size of a team’s resources.
While the Padres have the advantage of being the only professional sports team in San Diego after the Chargers left for Los Angeles in 2017, they also have taken the initiative of spending to keep up with the larger markets in the National League West Division, including the Los Angeles Dodgers (2nd) and San Francisco Giants (9th) and Arizona Diamondbacks (12th).
According to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, the Padres opened the 2019 season with a payroll of $97 million, but that number spiked to $174.1 million in 2021 after San Diego reached the National League Divisional Series during the COVID-shortened 2020 season. The payroll reached a high-water mark at $248.9 million in 2023 and has ranked in the top 10 in five of the past six seasons including a $202 million payroll at the beginning of this season.
This came with a cost as the Padres took out a $50 million loan approved by Major League Baseball after their TV deal fell through in 2023, but it has been worth creating the longest stretch of sustained success in franchise history with four playoff appearances in the past five seasons and a trip to the NL Championship Series in 2022.
That success has convinced fans to come to the ballpark and it’s helped San Diego rank in the top four in attendance in each season since 2021. Such a plan likely emphasizes Pohlad’s belief that winning will be the one thing that brings fans back and also validates any investment the Twins could make moving forward.
“To build the business, we’ve got to win. And to win, we’ve got to put a better product on the field,” Pohlad told reporters last month. “There does need to be an upfront investment made. But when we make an investment, we have to be successful. We have to f*****g win. If we do that, then people will come and it will all work.”
The Twins must keep spending past this year’s trade deadline
There are other franchises the Twins could model themselves after to win back the fans. The Brewers are the best team in baseball, entering Monday with a record of 74-44. But it’s come by staying ahead of the curve, signing several of their prospects to long-term deals and trading several key players including Freddy Peralta, Corbin Burnes and Devin Williams to get a return before they leave in free agency.
The Rays are the model every small-market team wants to follow. But their spending has been even worse than the Twins', fielding a $113.8 million payroll that ranks 27th in baseball.
By comparison, the Twins’ $137.9 million payroll ranks 24th and raising it to a moderate level could help them compete. But even if saying they want to be like the Padres is a step in the right direction, there has to be action behind those words.
While last month’s additions at the trade deadline is a start, it also needs to be taken past this year. Minnesota may also get some help if a salary cap and floor is instituted in the next collective bargaining agreement, but it would do nothing for fans if Minnesota did the bare minimum to get by.
Extending top prospects in the same way the Brewers have done before they reach the majors is also a solid strategy. But paying Major League players including Joe Ryan, Taj Bradley and Ryan Jeffers could be another step the Twins take to create sustained success.
It also could mean reaching lucrative deals with top prospects early in their career. While that has the chance to backfire, it also could provide a big benefit and perhaps save the Twins money by extending Kaelen Culpepper, Walker Jenkins or any of their other top prospects early in their careers.
The final – and perhaps biggest – piece of the puzzle, however, is in free agency. The Twins were trending in the right direction in the early part of the 2020s, signing Josh Donaldson and Carlos Correa to what were the biggest free-agent contracts in franchise history at the time of their arrival. But after posting a franchise record $153.7 million Opening Day payroll in 2023, the Twins’ $104.7 million payroll on Opening Day was their lowest for a full season since having an $85.4 million payroll ahead of the 2014 season.
Spending money just to spend it would be a bad idea. But it would also spice up the offseason ritual for Twins fans, who usually know they have no chance at a free agent before hearing “They were in on him,” moments after they signed somewhere else.
The Padres have become the small-market team that’s not afraid to go all in and for an owner that declared he was a “Go big or go home” guy last December, San Diego may be the team to follow for the Twins to get where they want to be.
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