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Derek Shelton had something on his mind.
Before reporters started asking him about Bailey Ober, Tristan Gray and the game the Twins had just played, he had a point he felt he needed to bring up.
The Twins had just beaten the Tampa Bay Rays 10-4 in their home opener on April 3. The game was delayed by about an hour by a power outage affecting parts of the North Loop. The temperature was in the 30s when the game began, and the conditions only got worse as the day progressed with steady rain near the end of the contest.
And yet, Shelton was impressed by the number of fans who had stuck around through it all.
“I just want to thank the fans for grinding through something electrical,” Shelton said. “To stay here to the end for that, as hard as it was raining, Opening Day, I just appreciate it.”
As the season gets underway, attendance at Target Field and fan morale is top of mind as the Twins work to re-engage a fanbase that showed up in Target Field-lows last season.
No matter the weather, their own personal sentiment toward ownership or the team’s performance on the field, there are loyal fans to be found in the stands. There also are major inroads the organization needs to make, both with that group and the fans who they’re trying to bring back to the park.
“I love the team. I want to support the players. I want them to know that there’s fans out there who love them,” 30-year-old Greta Gage of Minneapolis said. “When I talked to players at TwinsFest, they were saying, ‘We want to hear fans.’ And I’m like ‘Well, I’m going to be there. I’m going to be loud.’ … There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
That certainly isn’t the case for everybody, as attendance has taken a big hit in recent years with the Twins having finished in fourth place in the American League Central in consecutive seasons.
Last year’s announced attendance of 1,768,728 fans was the lowest attendance figure since the ballpark opened, save for the two pandemic-affected seasons in 2020 and 2021, during which the number of people allowed into the ballpark was capped. The last time the Twins drew that few fans was in 2001 back at the Metrodome.
Through their first seven home games, the Twins had an announced attendance of 121,959 fans, an average of 17,423 per game. The actual number through the turnstiles was much lower.
Laurel Thom, 65, was among those in the crowd. Thom, a long-time Twins fan lives in Seattle but travels to Minneapolis for about 30 home games per year. She also catches around 10 road games. That won’t change, even though she admits she has been “very disappointed,” in ownership across the past couple years.
“I feel like I can still support the team because my gear says ‘Minnesota Twins,’ not Minnesota ‘Pohlads,’” Thom said. “My disappointment is in ownership and I don’t believe that needs to be inflicted on the guys that are playing the game.”
But venture to social media and you’ll find a vocal segment of fans who refuse to go to Target Field or buy Twins gear until the Pohlad family, which has owned the team since 1984, sells.
That appeared as if it was going to happen last year when the team was on the market, but instead, the family decided to sell shares of the team and maintain ownership. As part of that process, Tom Pohlad replaced his younger brother, Joe, as the team’s executive chair in December.
Fan discontent with ownership has grown stronger in recent years due to a slashed payroll following the 2023 season, which came in response to mounting debt.
After the 2023 postseason during which the Twins won a playoff game for the first time since 2004 and fan morale was near its highest, the Twins cut their payroll by about $30 million, a move Tom Pohlad, who was not involved with team operations back then, has said was a mistake.
A 2024 team that looked destined to reach the playoffs collapsed over the course of the final six weeks of the season. After making just modest offseason additions, the 2025 team hovered just below .500 before a mass sell-off at the trade deadline in which 10 major league players, including some fan favorites like Jhoan Duran, Carlos Correa and North St. Paul’s Louie Varland, were shipped away, providing yet another blow in fan satisfaction.
Correa had been signed to the richest contract in team history just two and a half years earlier and was sent to Houston in a salary dump. The payroll was then decreased dramatically again this offseason.
Joe Black, 45, of Minneapolis had a T-shirt made after the trade deadline that read “Fire sale burn victim.”
“I felt really let down by the trade deadline last year. I invest a lot of time and money in being here and I felt like that was just a little bit of a slap in the face,” Black, who attends all 81 home games, said. “I’m frustrated by the ownership, but I don’t think there’s anybody who’s going to buy a major league ballclub who is going to do anything that resembles caring about individuals that way. Better the devil you know, I guess.”
With a team that was torn apart at the deadline — particularly the bullpen — and little money spent during the offseason, 2026 projections systems are not high on the Twins.
Neither are a majority of fans, it seems.
At the end of March, The Athletic released its annual “Hope-O-Meter,” a survey of more than 11,000 baseball fans. Their results showed a major-league low 4.3 percent of Twins fans reported feeling optimistic, a sharp decline from last year, when 52 percent said they were optimistic and the year before that, when the number was at 86.3 percent.
It wasn’t surprising, Pohlad said, but it was jarring.
“It’s nearly impossible to sell patience given where we’re at, which is why what happens on the field is the only thing that’s going to matter at the end of the day,” he said.
Since taking over, Pohlad, has dove headfirst into learning the business of baseball. He spent much of the spring down in Fort Myers, Florida. He can often be found in the clubhouse, forging connections with players and coaches. He’s spoken publicly far more than his brother did, hoping to appeal directly to fans and share ownership’s vision and reasoning for the moves it makes.
He’s well aware that $2 pregame beer — introduced to great reception earlier this year — and concerts at the ballpark won’t earn back fan trust. Only one thing will: winning.
“Tom Pohlad is saying all the right things,” 30-year-old Rachel Jacobson of St. Paul, said. “But until he puts money where his mouth is, I’m a little hesitant.”
Still, a dislike for ownership isn’t going to keep her away from the ballpark.
Tuesday, she took in the game alongside three friends. It was a night filled with $1 hot dogs, friendship and a 4-2 Twins win over the Tigers. Taj Bradley and Luke Keaschall, two of the Twins’ most-promising young players, each played a big role as the Twins beat the reigning two-time American League Cy Young Award winner, Tarik Skubal.
It provided, for one night at least, a glimmer of hope for brighter days ahead.
“Baseball is a game of failure. It’s rooted in failure,” Shayla Houser, 41, of Minneapolis said. “I think that sometimes you’ve got to hang on for the rough patches and I know the rough patches have been plentiful but compared to some other situations that other teams are in, I don’t think we’ve got it bad.”
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Before reporters started asking him about Bailey Ober, Tristan Gray and the game the Twins had just played, he had a point he felt he needed to bring up.
The Twins had just beaten the Tampa Bay Rays 10-4 in their home opener on April 3. The game was delayed by about an hour by a power outage affecting parts of the North Loop. The temperature was in the 30s when the game began, and the conditions only got worse as the day progressed with steady rain near the end of the contest.
And yet, Shelton was impressed by the number of fans who had stuck around through it all.
“I just want to thank the fans for grinding through something electrical,” Shelton said. “To stay here to the end for that, as hard as it was raining, Opening Day, I just appreciate it.”
As the season gets underway, attendance at Target Field and fan morale is top of mind as the Twins work to re-engage a fanbase that showed up in Target Field-lows last season.
No matter the weather, their own personal sentiment toward ownership or the team’s performance on the field, there are loyal fans to be found in the stands. There also are major inroads the organization needs to make, both with that group and the fans who they’re trying to bring back to the park.
“I love the team. I want to support the players. I want them to know that there’s fans out there who love them,” 30-year-old Greta Gage of Minneapolis said. “When I talked to players at TwinsFest, they were saying, ‘We want to hear fans.’ And I’m like ‘Well, I’m going to be there. I’m going to be loud.’ … There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
That certainly isn’t the case for everybody, as attendance has taken a big hit in recent years with the Twins having finished in fourth place in the American League Central in consecutive seasons.
Last year’s announced attendance of 1,768,728 fans was the lowest attendance figure since the ballpark opened, save for the two pandemic-affected seasons in 2020 and 2021, during which the number of people allowed into the ballpark was capped. The last time the Twins drew that few fans was in 2001 back at the Metrodome.
Through their first seven home games, the Twins had an announced attendance of 121,959 fans, an average of 17,423 per game. The actual number through the turnstiles was much lower.
Laurel Thom, 65, was among those in the crowd. Thom, a long-time Twins fan lives in Seattle but travels to Minneapolis for about 30 home games per year. She also catches around 10 road games. That won’t change, even though she admits she has been “very disappointed,” in ownership across the past couple years.
“I feel like I can still support the team because my gear says ‘Minnesota Twins,’ not Minnesota ‘Pohlads,’” Thom said. “My disappointment is in ownership and I don’t believe that needs to be inflicted on the guys that are playing the game.”
But venture to social media and you’ll find a vocal segment of fans who refuse to go to Target Field or buy Twins gear until the Pohlad family, which has owned the team since 1984, sells.
That appeared as if it was going to happen last year when the team was on the market, but instead, the family decided to sell shares of the team and maintain ownership. As part of that process, Tom Pohlad replaced his younger brother, Joe, as the team’s executive chair in December.
Fan discontent with ownership has grown stronger in recent years due to a slashed payroll following the 2023 season, which came in response to mounting debt.
After the 2023 postseason during which the Twins won a playoff game for the first time since 2004 and fan morale was near its highest, the Twins cut their payroll by about $30 million, a move Tom Pohlad, who was not involved with team operations back then, has said was a mistake.
A 2024 team that looked destined to reach the playoffs collapsed over the course of the final six weeks of the season. After making just modest offseason additions, the 2025 team hovered just below .500 before a mass sell-off at the trade deadline in which 10 major league players, including some fan favorites like Jhoan Duran, Carlos Correa and North St. Paul’s Louie Varland, were shipped away, providing yet another blow in fan satisfaction.
Correa had been signed to the richest contract in team history just two and a half years earlier and was sent to Houston in a salary dump. The payroll was then decreased dramatically again this offseason.
Joe Black, 45, of Minneapolis had a T-shirt made after the trade deadline that read “Fire sale burn victim.”
“I felt really let down by the trade deadline last year. I invest a lot of time and money in being here and I felt like that was just a little bit of a slap in the face,” Black, who attends all 81 home games, said. “I’m frustrated by the ownership, but I don’t think there’s anybody who’s going to buy a major league ballclub who is going to do anything that resembles caring about individuals that way. Better the devil you know, I guess.”
With a team that was torn apart at the deadline — particularly the bullpen — and little money spent during the offseason, 2026 projections systems are not high on the Twins.
Neither are a majority of fans, it seems.
At the end of March, The Athletic released its annual “Hope-O-Meter,” a survey of more than 11,000 baseball fans. Their results showed a major-league low 4.3 percent of Twins fans reported feeling optimistic, a sharp decline from last year, when 52 percent said they were optimistic and the year before that, when the number was at 86.3 percent.
It wasn’t surprising, Pohlad said, but it was jarring.
“It’s nearly impossible to sell patience given where we’re at, which is why what happens on the field is the only thing that’s going to matter at the end of the day,” he said.
Since taking over, Pohlad, has dove headfirst into learning the business of baseball. He spent much of the spring down in Fort Myers, Florida. He can often be found in the clubhouse, forging connections with players and coaches. He’s spoken publicly far more than his brother did, hoping to appeal directly to fans and share ownership’s vision and reasoning for the moves it makes.
He’s well aware that $2 pregame beer — introduced to great reception earlier this year — and concerts at the ballpark won’t earn back fan trust. Only one thing will: winning.
“Tom Pohlad is saying all the right things,” 30-year-old Rachel Jacobson of St. Paul, said. “But until he puts money where his mouth is, I’m a little hesitant.”
Still, a dislike for ownership isn’t going to keep her away from the ballpark.
Tuesday, she took in the game alongside three friends. It was a night filled with $1 hot dogs, friendship and a 4-2 Twins win over the Tigers. Taj Bradley and Luke Keaschall, two of the Twins’ most-promising young players, each played a big role as the Twins beat the reigning two-time American League Cy Young Award winner, Tarik Skubal.
It provided, for one night at least, a glimmer of hope for brighter days ahead.
“Baseball is a game of failure. It’s rooted in failure,” Shayla Houser, 41, of Minneapolis said. “I think that sometimes you’ve got to hang on for the rough patches and I know the rough patches have been plentiful but compared to some other situations that other teams are in, I don’t think we’ve got it bad.”
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