The Twins Have Become Valleyfair

After 40 years of frugal ownership, the Pohlad family has decided to explore a sale of the Minnesota Twins. Fans have rejoiced over the news, dreaming about an owner who treats the team less like a penny stock and more like a Major League Baseball franchise. However, visions of Jeff Bezos or Marc Lore pumping money into the Twins like Steve Cohen did with the New York Mets wouldn’t solve all of the franchise’s problems.

Fans are jaded after watching the team go from winning its first playoff games in two decades to a six-week meltdown, during which payroll and television drama made as many headlines as a blown save in the bullpen or a prolonged stretch on the injury list.

The Twins’ biggest problem is among the fans, and it’s the new owner’s job to ensure they don’t become MLB’s version of another popular Minnesota attraction: Valleyfair.

If you’re reading this, Valleyfair probably has a soft spot in your heart. The Shakopee amusement park opened in 1976. It's a popular destination for families looking for a fun regional vacation or a bus full of hyper kids celebrating the last week of school. But as cool as Valleyfair is to an older generation fueled by nostalgia or a younger generation fueled by excitement, something is missing for the generation in between.

You can view the Twins’ history under the Pohlad family similarly. Older generations of fans can probably point back to seeing Harmon Killebrew or Rod Carew at Metropolitan Stadium. Their kids can recall a pair of World Series championships shortly after Carl Pohlad bought the Twins from Calvin Griffith in 1984.

Younger fans may remember Torii Hunter, Doug Mientkiewicz, and Jacque Jones fighting off contraction in 2002. Then there are the youngest fans who simply marvel at one of their first baseball memories walking into Target Field.

For those who hopped aboard during Minnesota's run of six AL Central titles from 2002 to 2010? There’s not a lot of enthusiasm to head to the ballpark. The Twins were a perennial postseason team in the 2000s, but they could never get past the divisional round. Even when the Twins had a generational comeback in 2006, the Oakland Athletics promptly swept them.

Sidney Ponson, Joe Crede, and Tony Batista were the best they could get on the free-agent market. Trade deadlines were a moment of silence for the team’s postseason hopes. When the Twins made it to the postseason, opponents took care of them with little resistance. They built an 18-game postseason losing streak that would be the longest in the history of men’s professional sports in North America.

Even when the Twins opened Target Field, morale dropped as sharply as the initial drop on the Wild Thing. After fans flocked to the new ballpark for three years, the Twins saluted the late 1990s teams by losing 90 or more games in five of six seasons from 2011 to 2016.

The stretch helped the Twins build a wave of excitement around young prospects like Byron Buxton, Miguel Sanó, and José Berríos. However, they ultimately met the same fate. They blew a 3-0 lead to the New York Yankees in the 2017 AL Wild Card game, and the Yankees swept the Bomba Squad in the 2019 ALDS.

Perhaps that’s what made the past few years enticing to Twins fans. Valleyfair has added new attractions such as “ValleyScare.” The Twins did the same thing by signing Carlos Correa to a three-year, $105 million contract in 2022.

A late-season collapse kept the Twins from making the postseason. Still, it appeared they were trying to build a championship team, especially when they re-signed Correa to a six-year, $200 million contract after he opted out the following offseason. (We won’t get into the events that led up to that contract, but they wrote the check.)

Mix in a wave of new players like Royce Lewis, and the Twins had a cool team again, especially when they won their first playoff series in two decades by sweeping the Toronto Blue Jays in the 2023 AL Wild Card round.

Suddenly, being a Twins fan wasn’t reserved for those who remembered Dan Gladden crossing home plate in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series or who wanted to be Brian Dozier when they grew up. It felt cool to be a Twins fan again.

Until the Pohlads tightened the pursestrings.

There is much to be said for reducing payroll by $30 million or agreeing to a television deal that temporarily removed the team from the Twin Cities’ largest cable provider. But the 2024 Twins had the same vibe as going to Valleyfair in that many fans had seen this attraction before.

Star players got hurt, and the ones who remained healthy entered prolonged slumps. The Twins had the record of an MLB contender, but their most intense games came when fans of other teams, such as the St. Louis Cardinals, Milwaukee Brewers, or Toronto Blue Jays, came to town.

When these teams came to town, it was like an overweight man in a “Hawk Tuah” jersey punched T.C. Bear in the gut and stole his lunch money. There was barely any fight from Twins fans, who were either busy keeping score or sucking down $25 “Bomba Juices” in the Gray Duck Deck.

Like Valleyfair, a new owner throwing cash at the issue won’t solve everything. Still, it can be a step in the right direction. Changing the culture from one solely based on profit to one that wants championships is a good start and will capture the imagination of a growing fan base.

If the Twins owners want to succeed, a trip to Target Field can’t be the same as one to Valleyfair. It’s up to who buys the team to make that happen.