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The Pohlad family — owner of the franchise for the past 40 years — said in a statement Thursday that “after months of thoughtful consideration, our family reached a decision this summer to explore selling the Twins. As we enter the next phase of this process, the time is right to make this decision public.”

In the statement, Joe Pohlad, the team’s executive chair, said his family wants “to find an ownership group who all of us can be proud of and who will take care of the Minnesota Twins.” 

He did not say whether the family has been in talks with any prospective buyers.

, the Twins have an estimated value of nearly $1.5 billion, which ranks 21st out of 30 Major League Baseball franchises.

Joe Pohlad’s grandfather, Carl Pohlad, bought the team from Calvin Griffith for nearly $44 million in 1984. Carl Pohlad later told MPR News that Griffith had been in talks with a group that wanted to move the Twins to Florida and that he also had to buy out a Tampa-St. Petersburg group with whom Griffith had forged a deal.

 that there were more-lucrative investment opportunities available but that buying the Twins was a chance to repay a community that had been good to him.

“I felt I wanted to put something back into the area,” he said. “I think the Twins, maybe from a money standpoint, isn’t the greatest investment in the world, but at least (it's) an investment back in the community.”

Within a decade, the Twins had won their two World Series titles to date — in 1987 and 1991.

During the 1990s, Pohlad unsuccessfully lobbied the Legislature for stadium financing for a replacement to the Metrodome. In 1997, he threatened to sell the team to a North Carolina investor who would move the Twins to that state, but the deal fell through. 

Nearly a decade later, funding was approved for what would become Target Field, which opened in 2010.

After Carl Pohlad died in 2009, ownership of the team passed to his children and grandchildren.

In recent years there has been fan discontent over the team’s lack of playoff success — including an 18-game postseason losing streak. That was 

, when the Twins won a playoff series for the 

The Twins appeared on their way to another playoff berth this season, with a healthy midseason lead in the wild-card standings, before a late-season collapse left them out of the postseason.

In his statement Thursday, Joe Pohlad wrote that the team is “part of our family’s heart and soul.”

“After four decades of commitment, passion, and countless memories, we are looking toward the future with care and intention — for our family, the Twins organization, and this community we love so much,” he wrote.

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Joe Pohlad, the team’s executive chair, said Thursday his family wants “to find an ownership group who all of us can be proud of” but didn’t say whether he’s talked with any prospective buyers. The Pohlads have owned the team for 40 years. 

Pohlad family puts Minnesota Twins up for sale

Kerem Yücel | MPR News

Wild Card Series - Toronto Blue Jays v Minnesota Twins - Game Two

Pohlad family puts Minnesota Twins up for sale

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