Enough With Blasting Ownership

I’m guessing you’ve all heard or said one of, or multiple, the following statements at some point:

• “Our owner has never seen the team play!”
• “Howard and Chuck don’t care about winning!”
• “They just want to turn a profit!”
• “I love bologna sandwiches!”

Well, I’m here to tell you that only the fourth item on the list should still be in your vernacular moving forward.

I’ve been thinking about this subject much more as I’ve followed the movements of the club closer in recent years. And as Jason Churchill tweeted last night, the team handed out a lot of cash last night to newly signed players. More than some would have expected. Maybe even more than some feel was deserved.

This isn’t going to be a huge post citing tons of examples, but rather an opportunity to ask you to exercise your minds a bit.

Think about last night. Do a google search on international free agent signing bonuses. Consider where the Mariners payroll ranks with other clubs that are trying to compete.

We’re extremely fortunate to have an ownership group that will spend money. Do they spend as much as we’d like? No, but this isn’t New York or Chicago or Los Angeles. Have they always had people in place to assign the budget given that we felt were capable of building a winner? No, but bookending Bill Bavasi are two GMs who have a good feel for compiling talent.

Yes, they hired Bavasi. But it’s not like they gave him some change in the couch to work with.

So, the next time you get all angry: Stop. This ownership group does want to win and they’ve got us on a much better track now to get there.