Winning games won’t be enough. How the Twins can start to win back fans

Two days after the end of yet another disappointing Twins season Derek Falvey the club s president of baseball and business operations and general manager Jeremy Zoll met with more than a dozen local reporters in the barren Twins clubhouse at Target Field Such post-mortems are standard in the greater part baseball markets now and this one featured Falvey and Zoll casually dressed sitting at a table with a Twins-themed portable backdrop behind them Falvey and club executive chair Joe Pohlad fired manager Rocco Baldelli the day before and much of the conversation focused on that Pohlad did not attend the press conference Then the questions turned to the club s unsettled future the byproduct of ongoing payroll uncertainty Joe Pohlad notified the Star Tribune in late September the club had amassed million in debt a figure much larger than previously thought The Pohlad family had been exploring a sale of the club since last fall But instead of selling the Pohlads brought on two new minority investors who are expected to help reduce the debt That followed Falvey dealing players off the major-league roster ahead of the July business deadline saving an estimated million in salary Related Analysis Selling the Twins It left the Twins with two All-Stars center fielder Byron Buxton and starting pitcher Joe Ryan two other reliable starting pitchers Pablo Lopez and Bailey Ober one good-hitting catcher Ryan Jeffers and a cast of disappointing unproven underperforming characters everywhere else Fans took it out on the Pohlads by staying home the final two months The Twins drew only for the season th in the -team American League and the fewest in a non-COVID year since at the Metrodome So how do the Twins win back their fans I posed this question to Falvey that day asking him to address it from a marketing and communications perspective not a baseball one Here s what he announced Fair warning Falvey speaks in long twisty paragraphs We obviously didn t perform and we ve got to go perform he mentioned We ve got to go be a group that wins more games than we have the last couple of years I don t want to oversimplify it but I do think this Putting my business-side hat on this is a great place to come be a part of Twins baseball and be a part of Major League Baseball watch a baseball tournament It s a great experience here at Target Field Every time anyone walks through the door we hear that from our fans day in and day out no question We hear it from all different types of fans that come from different perspectives when they come through the doors That s true and that will remain true I hope we continue to make that a key experience I ve heard similar things from other Twins executives All we have to do is start winning again and fans will come back Nothing else required That s the wrong answer There s no personal touch no desire to reach out to the people you disappointed Frankly this doesn t surprise me There s a distance and aloofness to this franchise that wasn t the affair when I moved to Minnesota in That gang with tons of personality the Get-to-Know-Em marketing campaign and a regular-guy manager in Ron Gardenhire connected with and energized fans who avoided the Metrodome for greater part of the post- losing The club even won a playoff series before settling into a long string of postseason losses to the Yankees that drained much of the hope and nurtured much of the frustration from longtime fans In the last decade or so mainly since the departures of Gardenhire and former GM Terry Ryan the Twins lost that connection to their fans Now it s all transactional and that s not good Here s how the Twins can win those people back Hire a predicament communications firm When fans with long memories go back decades to find strategies to criticize the Pohlad family you ve got a issue no amount of bobblehead giveaways or foundation grants can solve Seems like every time any Pohlad speaks publicly even when they re being honest it backfires That s a major issue So is this organization s absurd secrecy The Twins picked up Baldelli s contract option before the season never declared it even after The Athletic broke the story and never ratified it until Falvey was solicited about it at the post-season press conference Then there s a lack of real accountability At his press conference Falvey offered multiple versions of the usual this-will-keep-me-up-at-night business that makes a nice quote at times like this But moments later he followed up with this I felt like this roster had a lot of talent on it that could go perform It didn t collectively perform to that talent level Here s what Falvey should have noted We thought we had a contending association but we were wrong and that s on me Clear concise on target Instead it came off as Falvey blaming the players and not the people who assembled the roster Is that really the message you want out there Time to call in the pros Colleague Howard Sinker once a Twins beat writer for the Star Tribune beat me to it in his weekly Sports Take newsletter asking Jon Austin of J Austin and Associates for his thoughts on saving the Twins from themselves Austin offered certain practical suggestions including cheaper concessions discounted parking and an annual live town hall with ownership Fans want a relationship not a series of revenue-maximizing transactions that feel like a tax on their passion Austin informed Sinker Bingo Hire a fresh face to run business operations As in not a Minnesotan and not someone promoted from within Look Falvey s a baseball guy not a business guy Asking a baseball guy to run the business side when he s got a roster to rebuild is like hiring a plumber to wire a fuse box You need someone with the skills to match the task And let s face it Falvey was only keeping the business seat warm until the sale went through The new owner would almost certainly bring in his own top executive see Timberwolves so it made no sense to hire a permanent replacement for outgoing president Dave St Peter Now it does The Twins should look for someone from a club in a similar sphere that s doing it right like Milwaukee or Colorado The Rockies with a horrible roster and deeply unpopular owner still drew million this season to see a -loss company that hasn t had a winning record since The Twins haven t drawn two million since Don t agreement Lopez Ryan or Ober We get it Lopez and Ryan are both they re valuable pact pieces and the Twins are rebuilding And we get that Ryan second-guessed the club in September for letting Sonny Gray walk in free agency two years ago the kind of frankness that usually gets someone traded Challenge is if you deal any of these three you re telling your fans you re giving up on no matter how hard you try to spin it That s a great way to keep the ballpark empty in mid-summer If healthy a big if that trio gives the Twins the makings of a reliable starting rotation especially if Simeon Woods Richardson builds on his encouraging finish to That might be enough for the Twins to contend in the AL Central baseball s weakest division And wouldn t that be a nice surprise Increase engagement with fans Twins players coaches and managers aren t out in the group that much any more That has to change Used to be groups of current and former Twins traversed the Upper Midwest for ten or so days on Winter Caravan every January meeting fans telling stories and signing autographs The Caravan was the last big one with stops in towns across four states The Twins began cutting back Caravan in two months before the pandemic began Last year s lasted two days Related Same event new strategy Selling the Twins to a new generation Baldelli wasn t interested in making personal appearances according to multiple Twins sources That was unfortunate He s a genuinely decent guy who connects with people one-on-one and isn t offended by rude or leading questions Last winter he handled several smart-alecks graciously at the St Paul Baseball Old Timers Hot Stove Dinner the only one of the ten Caravan stops where he appeared It s vital for the Twins to get new manager Derek Shelton and their greater part personable stars Buxton Lopez Ryan and Royce Lewis in front of as a multitude of fans as accomplishable this winter and not just at TwinsFest Lopez made several well-regarded personal appearances late in the season while recovering from a shoulder injury and he s one of the keys to this Hire an experienced TV analyst The bulk of the rotating former Twins serving as television analysts are fine to a point We get that a organization s broadcasters want the club to win that s the circumstance in every sphere But the constant cheerleading excuse-making and lack of professionalism on Twins broadcasts has grown tiresome At least twice this season viewers heard someone applauding in the TV booth Both happened with fill-in analysts Trevor Plouffe and LaTroy Hawkins That s got to stop Mets broadcasters Gary Cohen Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez are the gold standard here offering the perfect mix of strategy storytelling analytics analysis and wise-guy humor They clearly want the Mets to win but there s no hesitation critiquing plays and strategy when warranted That s what a sophisticated baseball audience expects Twins fans deserve the same The key Hire an experienced analyst from outside the organization Mark Grant the longtime San Diego analyst and former major-league pitcher who teamed seamlessly with Cory Provus on a Roku Sunday broadcast in late August maybe can t be lured from Southern California I d reach out to two former catchers ex-Twin A J Pierzynski the Fox Sports analyst or John Flaherty just let go by the YES System in New York after years calling Yankees games Both are smart forthright and well versed in hitting pitching and strategy exactly what Twins Territory demands The post Winning games won t be enough How the Twins can start to win back fans appeared first on MinnPost