Souhan: Brian Flores extension a credit to Vikings owners Zygi, Mark Wilf

The Twins won a playoff series in 2023. Most Minnesotans despise their owners.

The Vikings last won a playoff game after the 2019 season. Most Minnesotans love their owners.

The Wild last won a playoff series in 2015. Most Minnesotans are fond of their owner.

This is where the phrase “make it make sense” could be employed.

But these sentiments do make sense, when viewed through the prism of the passionate fan.

Fans project. They want to believe that if they were imbued with the talent of the best players or the wealth of the typical owner, they would do everything within their power to win.

So while winning is the goal, what fans also want to see is passion. They want commitment.

This week, the Twins host TwinsFest and begin marketing in advance of spring training. Signing quality players is the best possible marketing for a baseball team, and the Twins have added just three players who are ensured a role on the big league team: Hitter Josh Bell, backup catcher Victor Caratini and reliever Taylor Rogers. They might perform well, but they don’t move the needle in terms of changing the perception of the Pohlads.

Wednesday night, Jan. 21, the Vikings signed defensive coordinator Brian Flores to a contract extension that will keep him on staff if he doesn’t get an NFL head coaching job.

Not long ago, the Wild traded valuable assets for defenseman Quinn Hughes, one of the best players in the NHL.

The Twins still look cheap.

The Vikings look like they’ll pay any price to win, even if that hasn’t gotten them anywhere.

(We’ll excuse Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez, owners of the Lynx and Timberwolves, from this discussion until we see how they operate under pressure for a season or two. They’ve earned high marks so far for their one big decision — bringing in basketball boss Tim Connelly.)

The Flores signing is the biggest news of the week, and should be. He’s an exceptional defensive coordinator. Let’s not forget that when the Miami Dolphins fired Flores and he filed suit against the NFL for racial discrimination in the league’s head-coaching hiring practices, the Wilfs were willing to hire him, and head coach Kevin O’Connell was happy to bring him on board, even though Flores could have been considered a future threat to his job security.

Credit the Wilfs. They have evolved into outstanding owners who have made the once-dysfunctional Vikings a model franchise, if you can be a model franchise without winning playoff games.

The Hughes trade might be the biggest news of the winter. Leipold has displayed his thirst for victory before, when he signed Zach Parise and Ryan Suter to lucrative long-term contracts. The Hughes acquisition is even more impressive, because Hughes is a likely Hall of Famer and Parise and Suter were good, not great, players.

If the Wild fail to win while employing Hughes, you could question Leipold’s decision to green-light the trade … but you probably won’t. However it turns out, Leipold was trying to jump-start an idling franchise.

The Twins compete in a sport defined by competitive imbalance. That’s not the Pohlads’ fault, but that excuse will not resonate with fans. They see the Pohlads as rich people who could invest more in their team, and fans believe that if they were rich, they would invest more in their team.

The Pohlads haven’t helped themselves by talking about winning, and then failing to fund a winner.

There are nuances here that could work in favor of the Pohlads. We could point out the best Twins teams of the last 40 years were not built on expensive free agents, that the quality of the farm system is more important than the newsiness of winter signings.

Those arguments haven’t resonated because when the Twins have had high-quality teams, they haven’t added that one more free agent bat or arm that might have led to a World Series title.

You can see passion, even desperation, when you watch the Wilfs and Leipold operate.