With success will come cost. If the Twins continue to perform at their current pace, team payroll — now No. 20 among baseball’s 30 clubs — could increase dramatically.

That’s fine with ownership.

“I understand that — it’s all part of the deal,” owner Jim Pohlad said last week before the Yankees won two of three games at Target Field.

“I mean, that’s a positive thing. They (players) are worth it. That’s where we all want to get to. That’s where the players want to get to, that’s where the owners want to get to — paying for players who are really good and contributing. That’s what everybody wants.”

Jose Berrios, Byron Buxton, Eddie Rosario, Jake Odorizzi, Kyle Gibson, Taylor Rogers and Mitch Garver could warrant substantial contracts if they continue at their present pace. Jorge Polanco and Max Kepler signed team-friendly five-year extensions last winter.

Berrios, 25, who is 9-5 and pitching for $620,000 this season, said he would like a long-term contract but there are no new negotiations underway.

“I want it, but at the right time,” he said. “We’ll wait until the end of the season, put my numbers (statistics) out there and then we’ll talk about it.”

Pohlad, on the field before Monday’s game against the Yankees, sought out Polanco to congratulate him on becoming the American League’s starting shortstop for the All-Star Game.

For the Twins, the last 10 games of the season are against teams (Tigers, Royals) that could lose 100 games this year. And in those games, those teams will be expected to be playing some minor leaguers they want to see for next year.

Luis Arraez, 22, playing for $555,000 this season, seems a cinch to start at second base for the Twins next year, replacing Jonathan Schoop, 27, who is being paid $7.5 million and can become a free agent.

That was Yankees manager Aaron Boone and some of his coaching staff playing golf at Hazeltine National last Monday.

It will be announced that the Twins, who this year opened the season at Target Field at 49 degrees on March 28 against Cleveland, next season will open with a three-game series in Oakland on March 26, then head to Seattle for three games.

The Twins’ Miguel Sano purchased that thick gold chain around his neck in New York for $2,000.

“It’s heavy, but I like it,” he said.

Until Lakeville North’s Regan Smith, 17, on Friday set a world swimming record in the 200-meter backstroke, St. Thomas Academy grad Tom Malchow had been Minnesota’s only swimming world-record holder.

“I was able to watch the race with my daughters online — anytime you’re talking a world record you have to be impressed, but with the amount that she broke it by, you have to be very impressed,” Malchow, 42, said from Seattle, where he’s in hip and knee replacement sales.

Smith clocked 2 minutes, 3.35 seconds, eclipsing Missy Franklin’s former record of 2:04.06.

“It was one of those records people thought was going to stand for quite a while,” Malchow said. “I’m not the only world-record holder from Minnesota now, and I’m actually happy to share that. It’s exciting to see some other swimmer from Minnesota making a statement like that on the world stage.”

Malchow’s world record was in the 200-meter butterfly in 2000, when he won the Olympic gold medal at Sydney, Australia. That record fell to Michael Phelps a year later.

First baseman Byung Ho Park, 33, who signed a $12 million deal with the Twins four years ago, is hitting .285 with 17 home runs in 76 games for the Kiwoom team in Korea.

Tsuyoshi Nishioka, 34, who signed a $9.25 million contract with the Twins nine years ago, then returned to Japan to play, this year is believed to be out of organized baseball.

Ex-Minnesota Mr. Basketball Royce White is among the top 10 in the Big3 three-on-three pro league in blocked shots, steals and assists.

Vikings defensive end Danielle Hunter gets a page devoted to his conditioning regimen in the latest Sports Illustrated.

St. Paul’s Sean Sweeney, 35, the driven Detroit Pistons defensive assistant who is on track to become a head NBA coach, is such a big Notre Dame football fan that he purchased a house in South Bend, Ind., a 25-minute walk from the Irish’s stadium.

That was Mark Brooks, the 1996 PGA Championship winner, making purchases at 2nd Swing in Minneapolis each of the four days of the recent 3M Open in Blaine.

Wake Forest’s Emilia Migliaccio, the No. 8-ranked amateur women’s golfer in the world, will play in the Annika intercollegiate tournament Sept. 15-18 at the Royal Club in Lake Elmo.

The Vikings are 30-to-1 odds to win this season’s Super Bowl; the Packers are 24-to-1, according to MyTopSportsbooks.com.

Nice to see former Gophers hockey coach Doug Woog, 75, last week. He’s doing OK while dealing with Parkinson’s disease.

Ex-Gophers All-America infielder Mark Merila, 47, a major league scout for the San Diego Padres, was found to be cancer free after a second leg-hip surgery at Mayo Clinic last week.

That was Mike Tracy, the former Stillwater Country Club professional, playing golf at the Windsong Farm course last week while making a determined comeback from brain surgery 2½ years ago.

Local sports vendor Wally “The Beer Man” McNeil, 84, is still recovering from two knee and second hip replacement surgeries and is eager to begin walking with a cane in a few weeks.

“Working all those years catches up with you,” said Wally, who used to lug 60-pound beer cases up and down stadium stairs.

Happy birthday: Minneapolis’ Gene Hansen, one of the state’s greatest amateur golfers, turned 80 last week.

Condolences to the family of longtime beloved North St. Paul assistant hockey coach Crist Langlett, who helped kids on and off the ice and has died at age 88.

Ex-Twin Charlie Manuel, 75, surfaced as a coach in a celebrity softball game in Cleveland in conjunction with baseball’s recent All-Star Game.

Eden Prairie grad Jay Foreman, son of ex-Viking Chuck Foreman, goes into the Nebraska Football Hall of Fame on Sept. 13 in Lincoln.

Former Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel, whose brother Dick Tressel was head football coach and athletics director at Hamline University, agreed to a $300,000 annual salary extension as president at Youngstown State.

Ex-Gophers football coach Jerry Kill’s deal as AD at Southern Illinois is worth $210,000 annually. As Gophers head coach four years ago, he made $2.5 million.

Twins first baseman, C.J. Cron, whose christened name is Christopher John Cron, has been “C.J.” forever, he said. His father is Christopher John Cron, too.

DON’T PRINT THAT

Twins fans aren’t the only people eager for a trade before Wednesday’s major league deadline.

“I like deals, so I like action and activity,” Twins owner Jim Pohlad said but added, “I love prospects, and I’m leery of the price it’s going to be in terms of prospects. But that’s up to (top executives Derek and Thad) Falvey and Levine.”

Do the Twins need to make a deal?

“No, I don’t think we need to make a deal, but I’m not saying we wouldn’t like to,” Pohlad said.

Pohlad considers the Yankees, who defeated the Twins twice last week, a model organization.

“They are a really good organization all the way from top down,” he said.

The Yankees have the second-highest payroll in baseball, nearly $100 million more than the Twins.

“You’re seeing right now they’ve got some really, really good young players on both pitching and the fielding side, so I don’t think it’s all about spending,” he said.

A month ago, outfielder Alex Kirilloff, 21, was considered untouchable among Twins prospects. But considering the Twins’ depth of established outfielders — starters Byron Buxton, Max Kepler and Eddie Rosario, average age 26 — and prospects Trevor Larnach, Brent Rooker, LaMonte Wade and Matt Wallner, the Twins might have to part with Kirilloff, 21, to get the pitcher they want before Wednesday’s trade deadline.

Kirilloff is hitting .278 in 63 games with four home runs.

The Twins prospect the teams are asking for is shortstop Royce Lewis, but he hasn’t been available. Lewis, 20, is hitting .240 with 10 homers at Class A Fort Myers.

The most prudent — and realistic — trade partner for the Twins remains Toronto, which has starter Marcus Stroman and closer Ken Giles available. That deal probably would require the Twins giving up at least four prospects — perhaps Kirilloff, Larnach, shortstop Nick Gordon, and, fittingly for the Blue Jays, pitcher Jordan Balazovic, who is from Canada.

The Twins have enough firepower prospects to get that deal done, assuming they move in fast enough. The trade deadline is Wednesday, and the Yankees are lurking, too.

Craig Kimbrel, the Cubs closer the Twins considered too expensive as a free agent this summer, has seven saves with a 4.22 earned-run average in 11 appearances.

Hardly anyone has noticed, but Twins pitchers have no complete games this season and have had only three of their 104 in which the starter went as long as eight innings. Twins starters are

averaging 91 pitches. Most Twins starters have lasted fewer than six innings in a game.

In 2017, Twins pitchers had six complete games; in 2018, two complete games. Five of the 2017 complete games (three shutouts) were by Ervin Santana, the other by Bartolo Colon. The 2018 complete games were by Jose Berrios, one a shutout.

For comparison, 25 pitchers on other teams this season have pitched a total 29 complete games.

Also of note: Berrios, Kyle Gibson and Jake Odorizzi last year each had 32 starts. In those, Berrios and Odorizzi each averaged 96 pitches, Gibson 101.

This year, Berrios is averaging nearly 99 pitches, Gibson 94 and Odorizzi 89.

The Twins’ next Cooperstown hall of famer on the current roster will be all-star shortstop Jorge Polanco, 26, mlb.com projects.

It looks like Stillwater’s Minnesota Mr. Baseball Drew Gilbert, who decommitted from Oregon State, is headed to Tennessee.

A little birdie says St. Thomas, ousted by the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Association, could end up in the Division I Pioneer League for football and the Division I Summit League for its other sports. The university recently hired two assistant athletics directors.

Speaking of MIAC football, the only school interested in playing St. John’s in a nonconference game in 2020 is national Division III power Mary Hardin-Baylor (Texas) in a home-and-home series, but travel expenses would be $50,000.

Carleton College has signed a multiyear athletics apparel deal with Under Armour for its 20 varsity teams.

The Vikings this season are valued at $2.4 billion, according to Forbes. The Packers are worth $2.63 billion.

The Twins are fine on WCCO-AM but want to find a way to get a FM frequency.

Look for the Wild this year to alternate a handful of TV and radio broadcast voices, much the way the Twins do.

In a restructuring move, Timberwolves vice president of communications Brad Ruiter has lost his job. Unrelated, so has longtime Wolves equipment manager Clayton Wilson.

When Jarrett Culver began last season at Texas Tech, he had just over 10,000 followers on Twitter and Instragram. After becoming the Timberwolves’ top draft pick last month, Culver has more than 117,000 total followers, according to the athlete marketing platform Opendorse.

Meanwhile, based on geographic Twitter data the past month, 14 states figure the Yankees will win the World Series and 14 states feel it will be the Dodgers, according to sportsinsider.com. Just one state, Minnesota, thinks it will be the Twins.

Only seven Twins played on both of the club’s World Series championship teams (1987, 1991). They are Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek, Dan Gladden, Greg Gagne, Al Newman, Gene Larkin and Randy Bush.

Twins closer Taylor Rogers, 28, pitching for $1.5 million this season, is eligible for three years of salary arbitration.

Look for St. Thomas Academy football coach Dan O’Brien to also become interim athletics director.

Ex-Timberwolves coach Sam Mitchell, 55, who tried to recruit Matthew Hurt to Memphis before the Rochester John Marshall star committed to Duke, has left coach Penny Hardaway’s Memphis staff and is expected to take a TV NBA analyst job.

Some 150 residents of Henning, Minn., were at Target Field on Monday night, when a collection of Twins from the Henning boys basketball state championship team made the ceremonial first pitch.

In a touch of class, the Twins baseball team presented Angie Quam a No. 33 jersey with the Quam name on the back. Her son Jacob, whose number was 33, was killed in a car-truck crash in 2017 and would have been a starter on the Henning title team. He was its inspiration throughout the 31-1 season.

OVERHEARD

Twins outfielder Max Kepler, 26, who has 27 home runs and 70 runs batted in, fully content with the $35 million, five-year contract he signed last winter, on a suggestion last week that the deal now is under market value: “Money makes life easier, but it doesn’t supply happiness.”