White Sox rumors putting Seattle fan pressure on John Stanton to sell Mariners

Seattle Mariners fans' relationship with owner John Stanton has been rather complicated. On the one hand, the Mariners have built a pretty exciting young core of pitching, locked up Julio Rodriguez, and their payroll has ticked upward since the rebuild. However, actual investment in the Mariners' roster has increased very slowly, Seattle has missed the playoffs two years in a row, and the general fan sentiment around Stanton's promises to deliver a contender has been "believe it when we see it."

Amongst MLB owners, Stanton falls somewhere in the middle as a result. Stanton talks a big game about building a team that could finally win a World Series for Seattle, but he also clearly focuses a lot on buzz words like "sustainability" and "financial responsibility" while holding the Mariners to a middle-of-the-pack payroll and avoiding the deep end of the free agent and trade markets.

In a lot of ways, his ownership has placed the Mariners in baseball purgatory. Good enough to make things interesting on occasion, but never truly coming close to the ultimate goal.

With the word that White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf is exploring selling his team, one wonders if Stanton selling the Mariners would change Seattle's fortunes.

John Stanton selling Mariners might sound like a great idea, but fans need to be careful what they wish for

One thing that is important to point out here is that Stanton is not even remotely in the same ballpark as Reinsdorf in MLB's villain hierarchy. The White Sox just posted a dreadful season that will rank among baseball's biggest crimes for decades to come. Reinsdorf has been adamantly anti-player and anti-labor for as long as he has been an owner while not investing in Chicago's roster and hiding behind his ever-shrinking circle of friends. Once he sells (and it definitely sounds like "when" and not "if"), Reinsdorf won't be missed by many including by White Sox fans.

Stanton, on the other hand, has been more an annoyance than a guy that deserves that kind of open scorn. Mariners fans should absolutely hold him accountable for the promises made, but there are certainly worse alternatives. Just ask White Sox, Pirates, Rays, Rockies, and Marlins fans.

Would it be ideal for the Mariners to be owned by some deep-pocketed billionaire who would spare no expense to win a World Series? Sure, that would be objectively awesome to see, especially with Jerry Dipoto completely unleashed upon the league. But with the amount of money at stake and how profit-conscious any new owner would likely to be, Mariners fans shouldn't be necessarily storming the gates for that to happen just yet.

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