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When an sports team simply relocates from one town to the next they should carry with them the history. It's not as if they're starting something new but rather continuing an existing product in a new location. Thus the franchise records and player contributions should carry over and be recognized as the same franchise even if under a new name.
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I can't agree with that completely, or at least I don't consider it an absolute. The Twins appear to be unique in at least some respects. Their very first year of existence the city they left also had a new team, using the SAME NAME as the one that just left. So who's entitled to the legacy, the city whose local fans have gone to the park for years to root for a team of that name or the fans in the new town with a new team name? I imagine there would have been bad blood if the Twins had scheduled old-timers games those first few years using old Senators players. I suspect that Calvin Griffith sought to avoid such snubs and/or allow DC to keep its own perceived heritage.
It also appears that the Senators had retired no numbers by the time they moved to MSP, so there were none to come over in the move. [BTW--how many Philadelphia A's are honored in Oakland?]Also, keep in mind that the Twins owner was the adopted son of HOFer Clark Griffith. If the owner chooses not to honor his own father and his contemporaries with plaques and commemorative activities, it would seem to have been a deliberate choice of ownership to separate the two franchises, and you can hardly blame the region for not embracing this "heritage". Now that so many decades have passed since the move and DC has had another franchise installed, it's almost rather weak for the Twins to go back and embrace their "past" with much zeal. Recognize the records, fine, and even periodically acknowledge the connection, but I see little reason to get all nostalgic at this point.