The Twins’ late-season collapse is exactly what Pohlads paid for

The Twins’ second-inning freefall finally culminated Thursday night, a veritable comedy of errors that resulted in an 8-6 loss to the lowly Marlins that more or less dashed their playoff hopes from Minnesota. It’s a stunning exclamation point on a stunning collapse for a team that not long ago seemed headed for the postseason — Minnesota’s playoff odds jumped as high as 95 percent on Aug. 17, only for the team to lose 20 from the following. 30 games, the third-worst mark in the Majors, ahead of only the Angels and White Sox.

It’s also the product of an entire year of mismanagement, the predictable result of an ownership group that has done nothing but cut corners since last season ended. There’s a lot of blame to go around when a team falls so flat on its face. But if you want to point fingers — and we can hardly blame Twins fans if they do — be sure to start with the management that made this roster fail.

Coming off the team’s first playoff win in two decades, it looked like Minnesota was poised to join the AL’s inner circle in 2024. But instead of getting aggressive, the Pohlads opted to go in the opposite direction, tightening up . salaries by about 30 million dollars. There were extenuating circumstances at play in that decision, particularly the uncertainty surrounding the team’s local television deal. But Pohlads is worth over a billion dollars; it’s hard to believe that such a dramatic cut was necessary and resulted in a team that was hardly equipped to weather the storm of a 162-game season.

To be clear, injuries played their part. All of that brutal stretch came without starter Joe Ryan and top reliever Brock Stewart, while closer Jhoan Duran struggled down the stretch and stars like Royce Lewis and Byron Buxton both missed extended time. But this is baseball in the year 2024; you’ll be hard-pressed to find a team that hasn’t dealt with injuries, especially to its pitching staff.

The difference is that the Twins left themselves unprepared, buying into the bargain bin and hoping for the best. Anthony DeSclafani was the only rotation acquisition over the winter; Trevor Richards was the only acquisition at the deadline. DeSclafani never threw a pitch in Minnesota, while Richards was cut four weeks later. The result? A team fighting for playoff life found itself with three starters (Simeon Woods Richardson, David Festa and Zebby Matthews) in the rotation.

The story was largely the same in the bullpen, where relievers like Steven Okert, Jay Jackson and Josh Staumont exploded into middle-leverage roles. With Stewart out and Duran up and down, manager Rocco Baldelli was left to wade through a series of increasingly desperate options (Ronny Henriquez? Caleb Thielbar?). Minnesota ranks an ugly 27th in team ERA since August 18, and that simply put too much pressure on an offense that wasn’t built to handle it (and was dealing with injuries of its own).

If you want to get mad at Baldelli, that’s fine. If you want to get mad at the weak lineup, that’s fine too. But it all starts at the top, and the fact remains that Minnesota had an opportunity to load up on talent in support of a core it had every reason to believe was good enough to compete for a pennant this season. He chose not to, strictly for financial reasons, and that turned the typical attrition of a long season into an unmitigated disaster.