Fire Gardy

This afternoon, Carl Pohlad died. He was 93 years old.

I’ve had my differences with Pohlad over the years. And while he was the owner of the Twins, it was always very easy to villainize him. Demanding interest from the state on an $80 million “gift,” threatening to sell the team to a North Carolina businessman, attempting to contract the team, refusing to increase payroll despite being the wealthiest owner in baseball, building his fortune by foreclosing on people’s farms during the Great Depression (which hits the heartstrings particularly hard these days), and a history of shady business deals on which he always seems to come out ahead are all reasons Pohlad’s been the butt of many angry jokes over the years.

But now is most certainly not the time to focus on those things. Despite all the threats, Pohlad kept the team in Minnesota throughout the dark years of the 1990s. He signed Kent Hrbek to the largest contract in baseball history, and Kirby Puckett to the largest contract ever offered to an outfielder, just to keep them with the Twins (that both contracts were superseded immediately is unimportant). He stayed out of the way enough for Terry Ryan to rebuild the franchise to its current level of perpetual quality — notice that most owners demand either short-sighted moves that hurt the team in the long run, or payroll-slashing moves that hurt the team even more. And he won two World Series championships in his tenure as owner.

He finally managed to win a new stadium, and the greatest tragedy of his life is that he won’t live to see it.

Today is a dark day for Twins fans, and I’m sad to see Pohlad go. The future is uncertain — will his sons take over in Steinbrenner-like fashion? If they do, will they spend their father’s money more freely, or will they be more spendthrift? If they don’t, who will buy the team now, when big money is hard to come by — and will the team stay in Minnesota? I’m hoping for status quo or better, but without Carl around things just might get worse.

But there are a couple things that give me hope.

The first is that Pohlad’s sons work for the Twins, and one of them has been groomed for many years to take over the team. All three of his sons have been taking more control of the team as Pohlad has aged rapidly in the last decade. That points to status quo.

The second is a statement from son Robert Pohlad:

“My dad started with nothing, worked very hard and has been tremendously successful. I think he truly believes that if he doesn’t work hard, he’s gonna be back on a food line or a bread line … looking for his next meal.”

That’s a pretty typical mindset for people of that generation; it’s the generation of packrats, constantly in fear that their life will plunge back to those terrible days and they’ll have nothing. It makes sense … and it also makes sense that people who grew up in subsequent generations would not share those same fears.

His sons grew up in said subsequent generations, during the boom years of the second half of the 20th century; they’ve seen recessions and bouncebacks, they’ve seen that the economy rebounds every time, and most of all, they’ve always had money. Lots of money. They’ve seen their father make money faster than he could possibly spend it, and they’ve seen his fortune grow to the 100th largest in America.

It’s more than possible that his sons recognize the fact that they’re not taking it with them, that the fortune will last long enough to pass on to their own children, and their children’s children, in perpetuity. Payroll could easily go up, rising above the 52% of revenue limit. It’s something to hope for; a little upside, as it were.

So rest in peace, Carl Pohlad. Your time in Minnesota was a good one, and you will be missed. Thanks for all the good times, and good teams.

And condolences to the Pohlad family. Follow in your father’s footsteps — keep the team in Minnesota and in the family. But don’t be afraid to step a few feet from the tree, and spend a few bucks. (It’ll help you get respect from the fans while you’re still alive.)

Go Twins. The team will outlast us all. That’s the ultimate hope of every fan.

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So the Indians completed a trade with the Cubs. The Indians get Mark Derosa to replace Casey Blake (and to keep him away from the Twins, who were also interested). The Cubs get three no-name pitching “prospects” in return; one who split time in AA and AAA and might make the bullpen this year, and two in Low-A ball.

Obviously, now all the Twins fans are furious. They’re pissed at Bill Smith and the rest of the front office for sitting on their hands and not making a deal that, in the minds of these fans, would DEFINITELY have helped the team. With Derosa manning third base, these fans say, the Twins are an unstoppable juggernaut who will win 110 games and dominate all the way to the World Series! Without him, this team is nothing but a ragtag group of nobodies who will be proud of their inevitable fourth place finish. Clearly, Mark Derosa is the key, the lynch pin, the final ingredient! Allowing him to pass through our fingers is an unforgivable mistake; especially since he has gone to the Cleveland Indians, who will now be the favorite in the AL Central since they’ve replaced Casey Blake with Mark Derosa.

Casey Blake, 2008: .274/.345/.463, 21 HR, 81 RBI Mark Derosa, 2008: .285/.376/.481, 21 HR, 87 RBI Mark Derosa, Career 162 game average: .279/.348/.422, 13 HR, 64 RBI (ie, that’s closer to what we’d get from him given the fact that Wrigley is a great hitter’s park and he had a career year)

Obviously, Derosa is going to put the Indians over the top. After all, he’s so much better than Blake was! And obviously he’s all the Twins needed to get to the World Series, given that those career averages are SO much better than what we can possibly hope to get from a Buscher/Harris platoon. The sky is falling, for Christ’s sake, and we need to do some saber-rattling to let the front office know how badly they’ve blown this! Obviously.

But the problem here is not with the Twins’ front office. It’s not some reputation that we’re not willing to give up anything good. It’s much worse than that — something the Twins can’t do anything about.

The Twins are renowned around baseball for getting the better side of trades. People point to our questionable acquisition of Johan Santana, and they point to the Nathan/Liriano/Bonser Heist, and they think “Watch out for those Twins, they’ll take everything you’ve got and leave you holding the bag!” So they do everything they can to make sure we don’t screw them.

Thus, when the Rays were trying to unload their talented but immature corner outfielders last year, they demanded an ace pitcher and a starting shortstop and a talented minor league reliever (in fact demanding that we upgrade the deal from Rincon) from us to get one of them. The other went to the Nationals for a PTBNL.

Last offseason, anyone we tried to talk to demanded Garza+Baker+Slowey in any trade, for whichever of their players we wanted. Obviously, Smith didn’t let that happen.

This year, the Rockies want Slowey+Span for Atkins. The Cubs wanted Slowey+Span for Derosa. The Mariners want Slowey+Span+Baker+prospects for Beltre. Everyone we talk to demands at least Slowey and Span for whatever one year rental they decide their willing to gift us.

Bill Smith wisely refuses all these “deals,” saying “We’ll give you less than that. You’re not getting that much for what you’re giving us.” And the other teams let us walk away, knowing that if they want lesser prospects they can go elsewhere. And so they do — they drop from a top notch starter straight down to a PTBNL elsewhere. They drop from Slowey+Span straight down to some non-prospect minor leaguers from our division rival.

That’s not Smith’s fault. And he shouldn’t have had to try to “outbid” the Indians; people are somehow recommending that Smith erred by failing to offer Swarzak and Humber and Slama and Manship. The problem with that thinking is that each one of those guys is much more valuable than anyone the Indians gave up. The Twins should have been going even lower down, but the Cubs weren’t willing to go there with the Twins. (And another thing for those who think the Indians gave up nothing — one of their Low-A pitchers threw 100 strikeouts in 64 innings this year. That’s pretty solid.)

Others accuse Smith of being unwilling to give up any of our starters to improve the team, and that this is a foolish mistake. They go further and claim that this trade indicates that the Cubs were willing to take a package consisting of nothing but minor leaguers, and therefore Smith failed to upgrade the 2009 team at the expense of future years. These fans fail to realize two things. First, the deal was not available to the Twins — when the Cubs were talking to the Twins, they were willing to accept nothing less than a major league starter and a major league starter; they dropped their demands after ending discussions with the Twins and realizing that the market for Derosa is not, in fact, booming and that the Twins were not trying to rob them. Second, sacrificing a big part of the future by trading Swarzak/Slama/Manship is unwise — these are the guys who will stock our rotation in 2011. A farm system stocked with pitching prospects is the holy grail of a baseball organization, and the Twins have it; it would be moronic at best to sacrifice that for a one year rental of an average player whose stats in his age 32 season were inflated by his home stadium.

I’m a fan for the long term. I’m excited to see Swarzak and Manship develop as players and get up to the majors in the next few years. Likewise, the Twins are planning for the long term. They know the current crop of starters may not remain healthy and effective indefinitely. They also know that if they DO remain healthy and effective, then we won’t be able to afford them any more, which is why we need new starters coming in to replace them and keep up our competitiveness.

The league is full of franchises who thought it’d be a good idea to mortgage their future for a shot at glory this year. Almost all of them failed that year, and for years after that are derelict franchises with an empty farm system and dead weight on their overpaid roster and a losing record. Twins fans should be thrilled that we’re not in that position, and that the front office is doing everything in their power to make sure we don’t get there.

And if that means they don’t buy high on aging players while selling low on promising young talent, then fine. If it means that wintertime is usually boring and we have to watch as other teams shuffle the deckchairs in an attempt to make their fans think they’re doing something, then fine. We’ll see you when pitchers and catchers report; we have the best of those.

So just relax. The Twins are doing what they should do — not panic. As Twins fans, we should follow their lead. Don’t panic.

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