Pohlad Dead At 93

[love_that_reefer]

Twins owner Carl Pohlad passed away on Monday at age 93.
Pohlad was worth $3.8 billion, but even in his advancing years, he was never willing to spend big money to improve the Twins, who last appeared in a World Series in 1991. The team did win two championships during his 24 years as an owner.

It is easy to kncok on him for being one of the cheapest guys in baseball but he did bring Minnesota its only two championships. May he rest in piece. How does this affect the future of the club? Who takes over?

[henks]

I think one of his sons has been doing the day to day stuff, since Carl has been ill for a while. Don't expect to see any bigtime spending soon, however.

Condolences to the Pohlad family.

[ljshorty89]

I know this is going to sound awful, but my first thought was that this reminds me of the movie Little Big League...except they won't have a 12 year old manager.

[mntwinsfan]

His son is running the team. Now I think the leash will finally be untied and some much needed spending will happen. I figured as long as Carl was around little spending would happen. Things may change now. Maybe just maybe we will go after some much needed pop in the lineup.

[catman]

I'm genuinely sorry to see this as I thought Carl Pohlad was a very nice man. He was always willing to talk to fans and sign autographs for those who asked him. My wife thought he was, in her words, "the cutest little man in the Twin Cities". He ate in the restaurant that my nephew manages regularly, although they had to go out and get his favorite beverage. He owned the bottling company and the restaurant only carried the competitor's product. He tipped well, from what I have heard, also.
Condolences to the family and friends.

[caTwinsfan]

It is easy to kncok on him for being one of the cheapest guys in baseball but he did bring Minnesota its only two championships. May he rest in piece. How does this affect the future of the club? Who takes over?

Before you rush to call Carl Pohlad cheap I hope you realize that in order to keep the team in Minnesota he purchased tickets. Griffith had said the team needed to draw a specific number of fans or he would move them to Tampa, it was Pohlad who stepped up to buy tickets to meet that before finalizing the deal to buy the team.

He kept Puckett, Hrbek and others, as well as adding free agents to win the 1991 World Series. He also was a loyal guy, which is the reason why the Twins are successful today. If he had run through a couple of GMs in the mid to late 90s, what are the chances the Twins are in continued contention today?

He had two faults as the owner of the Twins. The first was threatening to sell the team to Don Beaver in 1997. It was in attempt to get a stadium. His second and biggest fault was putting the team up for contraction in 2001.

He is also the main reason why Target Field is slowly becoming a reality.

Call Carl Pohlad cheap, but it is not justified nor deserved. He might just be one of the better owners in the game in the sense that he does not try to run the team.

Jim Pohlad had taken over every day operations last year some time, and he will continue that roll.

[GiantsFanatic]

I don't want to make this sound like lets bash Pohlad thread, but when you can't resign the best pitcher in the game and one of the best defensive CF in the game, when you have more money than the Steinbreners, you deserve to be called cheap, IMO.

[mntwinsfan]

Polad is cheap. I will stand by this till the day I die. 87 and 91 the contracts were not where they are now. We have glaring holes going into 2009 and we have done squat. When will the Polads step up and spend money? We have a new stadium opening soon and we will have the same team with little or no changes.

[caTwinsfan]

I don't want to make this sound like lets bash Pohlad thread, but when you can't resign the best pitcher in the game and one of the best defensive CF in the game, when you have more money than the Steinbreners, you deserve to be called cheap, IMO.

Think through the numbers, if he ran the Twins that way he wouldn’t have the money he has today for very long. The Yankees are a little different, they draw a few more people, have a few more luxury boxes and one impressive TV deal. Not to mention large amounts of merchandise sold.

And they had Santana signed for another year - they could have signed him to what he wanted, but where is the limit? The Twins have one.

[caTwinsfan]

Polad is cheap. I will stand by this till the day I die. 87 and 91 the contracts were not where they are now. We have glaring holes going into 2009 and we have done squat. When will the Polads step up and spend money? We have a new stadium opening soon and we will have the same team with little or no changes.

Go cheer for the White Sox. They spend a crap load of money every year only to get their asses handed to them nearly ever season by a better run and managed team in Minnesota.

Kirby Puckett signed a deal in 1992 to become the first “$3 million man” – at the time it was the largest contract in the game.

It is a long time until opening day, a lot can change in that time. If you know the opening day 2010 roster you might want to give Bill Smith a call to inform him.

[henks]

Polad is cheap. I will stand by this till the day I die. 87 and 91 the contracts were not where they are now. We have glaring holes going into 2009 and we have done squat. When will the Polads step up and spend money? We have a new stadium opening soon and we will have the same team with little or no changes.

Dumping money isn't the answer. Look at Detroit, CWS, Angels, Mets...not much done there with a lot of cash spent. Then you look at a team like Tampa, who no one expected to win over 80 games, let alone make it to the world series.

Yeah, it would be nice to have big name players like Tex, Jeter, Pedroia, ManRam, guys like that. But that's not what the Twins are about, and as a Twins fan you should know that.

[mntwinsfan]

Call me out as a Twins fan?? I have been a fan for over 35 years. Please dont ever call me out. Tell me what polad did to make us better last season? NOTHING.. If you spend money the fans will show up the stadium will fill up. What do we do nothing and have over half the stadium with no one in the seats..

[caTwinsfan]

Call me out as a Twins fan?? I have been a fan for over 35 years. Please dont ever call me out. Tell me what polad did to make us better last season? NOTHING.. If you spend money the fans will show up the stadium will fill up. What do we do nothing and have over half the stadium with no one in the seats..

Let’s play this out a little, should we?

Average ticket price to see a game at the Dome is $20. The Twins total attendance for 2008 was 2.3 million. $20 per ticket at 2.3 million is $46 million for the season. I will give you $10 million to add to that for higher priced tickets and luxury boxes (the few they have). That puts them at $56 million for income for 2008.

2008 total payroll for the players was $56.9 million. Keep in mind that the Vikings get concession sales, or at least part of it, and the Dome is leased. You have to pay the rest of the employees including the FO.

The Twins get some money from revenue sharing, although I will admit I do not know how much. At this point though I would think they are going to be pressed to break even.

I think you can certainly argue that going into 2008 that trading for Young was a way to improve the offense. And it is not as if they didn’t try to make some trades for some help in the middle of the year, when options are limited and Beltre and the M’s don’t want to deal, what are you to do?

Keeping Hunter would have been stupid. For the money he will make and the length of it is just a stupid move. The Angles are able to eat the end of the contract, the Twins have a hard time doing it.

If you did not attend games last season, that is your fault. Not like there was a lack of exciting, entertaining and meaningful games to see.

Spending money just to spend money is not the answer either. Who would you suggest the Twins go pick up?

[henks]

Call me out as a Twins fan?? I have been a fan for over 35 years. Please dont ever call me out. Tell me what polad did to make us better last season? NOTHING.. If you spend money the fans will show up the stadium will fill up. What do we do nothing and have over half the stadium with no one in the seats..

I'm not trying to call you out...all I'm saying is that you make it very clear that you hate the Yankees, who spend money like no other. And you're very proud of the Twins who can put a competitive team on the field with a small percentage of what New York, Boston, LA make.

The Twins have had a system that has been working for a while now. But I really don't think dumping a ton of cash into one player is going to happen anytime soon.

[catman]

Another story about Carl Pohlad:
http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_11382311
He was well liked by his employees and will be missed.