Derek Shoen

Joe Pohlad and the Pohlad family aren’t just a disgrace to baseball, they’re a stain on the entire state of Minnesota. Their story starts in the Great Depression, not as scrappy underdogs, but as profiteers who made their fortune foreclosing on homes of desperate families who had lost everything. From day one, they were taking from the poor to enrich the rich, and that ethos has never left them. For decades, the Pohlads have been infamously cheap, demanding that Minnesota’s taxpayers and fans foot the bill for their every whim. They’re not savvy businesspeople, they’re parasites. In the early 2000s, they nearly let the Twins die. Attendance was down, they refused to invest, and the team was on the chopping block to be contracted alongside the Expos. The only thing that saved the franchise was a court injunction forcing them to honor their Metrodome lease. By 2006, they convinced Minnesota to cover seventy-five percent of Target Field’s cost. A billion-dollar family, holding out its hand to working-class Minnesotans and demanding payment. Fast forward to 2016, Jim Pohlad hires Derek Falvey to modernize the organization. For a moment, there was hope. Player development technology, advanced analytics, and a revamped coaching staff started to pay off. By 2019, the Twins won 100 games. By 2023, they broke their playoff curse. The arrow was pointing up. Then Joe Pohlad took over, and steered the ship straight into the iceberg. He “right-sized” the team, gutted investments in talent and infrastructure, and erased the analytical and developmental edge the Twins had built. By July 31, 2025, the gut punch landed: an all-time pathetic trade deadline where they dumped eleven players in a payroll purge disguised as a “fresh start.” It wasn’t a reset, it was a surrender. The final hope Twins fans clung to was the idea that the Pohlads might finally sell. Now we know they won’t. Joe Pohlad, and the rest of your dynasty of leeches, you are nothing more than generational thieves. You take from people who make less than you, give back nothing, and expect them to be grateful. Minnesota doesn’t owe you thanks. Minnesota owes you the door. Fuck you, Pohlad family.