Donn Beach wrote: ↑Thu Sep 17, 2026 8:14 pm
Sure, that's my point. Allen is a hero and Stanton is a villain. But I don't think that's because Allen cared more about football than Stanton cares about baseball. You know Stantons background is little league. He's been involved in it much of his life. He's in the the little league HOF in fact. I think he cares about baseball and I think he cares about the team he owns. That he hasn't been as successful as Allen at it doesn't make him an Ahole that doesn't care about anything
Fair enough. I don't know Stanton. Never met him. Maybe he eats, breathes, sleeps and showers baseball. I doubt it. But maybe.
I can, however, make reasonable inferences about what he does and what he says. Announcing that 88 wins is the official target isn’t the talk of a man who wants to win. It’s the talk of a man who’s already shopping for a participation trophy and a quiet mid-tier finish. That number is the purest, most concentrated essence of mediocrity ever committed to a press conference. The only scenario where 88 wins claims a division is if every other team in it simultaneously decides to face-plant into a woodchipper. He’s not aiming high. He’s carefully drawing the line at “good enough to not get fired immediately,” then dropping a Vegas-sized parlay that the rest of the division will obligingly implode around his carefully managed mediocrity.
See the following from The Seattle Times, January 2015 as the Seahwaks were headed to their
third Super Bowl game since the franchise was bought by Allen:
“Your dream when you buy a sports franchise is to win the championship, the Super Bowl,” he said during a phone interview Tuesday. “The first time you go you’re kind of amazed to be there. The thing is, once you’re in the Super Bowl, you want to win. As time goes on, you want to win more and more.”
These are the words of a man who bought a team and is hungry for a championship. He refers to fans as "the 12's". He loved the city and the fans and wanted to win a championship for them. And then again, and again.
Allen treated the Seahawks with a tech-billionaire's audacity, viewing championships as the only acceptable return on investment. Stanton operates the Mariners more like a traditional, cost-conscious business. Even when Stanton has increased payroll, it is just enough to stay competitive rather than going "all in".
Allen sought out and then paid transformative figures like Pete Carroll. Stanton's front office has faced regular criticism for hiring lower-cost managers, and for avoiding big contracts on potentially franchise-shifting free agents.
So yeah - they're different dudes with different styles. My point is that Allen was laser focused on winning championships. Stanton is focused on minimizing costs, hoping to stay relevant and competitive, and if they make the post season, great.
And here's the thing - in the first 11 years after Allen bought the Seahawks they went to the playoffs 6 times. In 11 years since Stanton and Dipoto have run things - one abbreviated trip to the playoffs. You do the math.
