{"id":551574,"date":"2026-02-03T03:51:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T03:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/551574\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T03:51:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T03:51:20","slug":"tom-pohlad-has-bold-claim-for-minnesota-twins-2026-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/551574\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Pohlad Has Bold Claim for Minnesota Twins’ 2026 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Minnesota Twins<\/a> are heading into 2026 with plenty of questions and not a lot of answers.<\/p>\n

Owner and executive chair Tom Pohlad is trying to change that narrative, and he recently made it clear that the upcoming season carries serious weight for the franchise.<\/p>\n

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“We have to have a good season in 2026,” Pohlad said last week in an interview with Aaron Gleeman of The Athletic. “Just because I say we’re trying to build a team that can play a string of October seasons, that doesn’t mean we’re not all in on 2026. Frankly, for us to be able to build a team and build a business that can invest in a team, we have to have a strong 2026.”<\/p>\n

Ownership Turmoil Continues<\/p>\n

Those words carry extra meaning when you look at everything that has happened with this organization over the past year.<\/p>\n

The Pohlad family explored selling the team in 2024 but pulled back after failing to find a buyer willing to take on the franchise’s roughly $500 million in debt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Instead, the family added three minority investor groups and Tom Pohlad took over as the team’s control person from his brother Joe.<\/p>\n

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The Twins also parted ways with longtime president Derek Falvey at the end of January, which shocked many around the league given that spring training is right around the corner.<\/p>\n

General manager Jeremy Zoll will now lead baseball operations while the organization searches for a new president.<\/p>\n

Coming Off a Rough 2025<\/p>\n

The Twins finished 70-92<\/a> last season and landed in fourth place in the AL Central, 18 games out of the final wild-card spot.<\/p>\n

That record marked a significant drop from 2023 when Minnesota won a playoff series for the first time in 21 years.<\/p>\n

At the trade deadline, the Twins traded away 11 players<\/a>, including fan favorite Carlos Correa, and the moves were met with heavy criticism from fans who believed ownership was simply shedding payroll.<\/p>\n

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Can Minnesota Make the Playoffs?<\/p>\n

The path back to October will not be easy.<\/p>\n

The Twins’ current payroll sits around $105 million, which is well below league average, and not many believe that they can legitimately compete in 2026.<\/p>\n

The AL Central has also become more competitive, with the Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Guardians and Kansas City Royals all looking like serious contenders.<\/p>\n

There are reasons for hope though. Byron Buxton had a breakout 2025 season with 35 home runs and an .850-plus OPS.<\/p>\n

Starting pitchers Joe Ryan and Pablo Lopez give Minnesota a legitimate playoff-caliber rotation<\/a> if the team decides to keep them, and the farm system now ranks among the best in baseball.<\/p>\n

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Pohlad wants fans to judge 2026 on wins and losses rather than payroll numbers, but he knows a strong season is necessary to grow the business.<\/p>\n

The question now is whether his words will translate into action on the field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Minnesota Twins are heading into 2026 with plenty of questions and not a lot of answers. Owner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2388],"tags":[5,545,2223,3225,51,53,1455,55,822,60,3190,4,1997,24911,64508,148],"class_list":["post-551574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-minnesota-twins","tag-baseball","tag-brent-rooker","tag-byron-buxton","tag-carlos-correa","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-joe-ryan","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-minnesotatwins","tag-mlb","tag-pablo-lopez","tag-pohlad-family","tag-tom-pohlad","tag-twins"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116004669750863623","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}