John Stanton on how he’ll approach role as Mariners’ Chairman, CEO
May 2, 2016, 11:09 AM | Updated: May 4, 2016, 6:47 am
Incoming Chairman and CEO John Stanton says he'll be hands-off when it comes to baseball decisions. (AP)
(AP)
After last week’s announcement that he will be taking over as the Mariners’ Chairman and CEO, John Stanton talked with 710 ESPN Seattle’s Mike Salk about how he’ll approach his new role.
“The role I can play is to be supportive and make sure there is a commitment to be willing to spend money, put a good product on the field,” Stanton said. “It also means we’ve got to have fans in the stadium. We need to do everything we can in the marketing and the ticket sales and sponsorship sales to get people into this ballpark. Get the energy that makes a difference in terms of the kinds of enthusiasm. I don’t know if it really makes a difference in the way the players play. I kind of hope and think maybe it does. But you’ve got to have energy in the ballpark. You also have to have people who are helping us pay the bills.”
Here are some other highlights from Salk’s interview with Stanton:
What the MLB wants from ownership: “It’s MLB’s perspective that they want one party to take responsibility, and they call that the control person. That’s not the same as the owner. I will be a minority owner along with 16 other parties that each will own a piece of the team.”
He will have an office at Safeco: “I expect most of the work that I do will be with Kevin Mather. Kevin has done a spectacular job as president and I expect to support and work with him in that role. I don’t think that a Chairman/CEO necessarily has to be the ones that infuses culture in the organization. I think the whole management team is responsible for that. It’s (general manager) Jerry Dipoto in getting the right players, (manager) Scott Servais in the way he provides passion on the field and Kevin provides passion in the back office.”
Goals: “It’s easy to say our goal is to try to make it to the playoffs or play meaningful baseball in September, but that’s not the goal. The goal is to win a World Series and we want to do that.”
He plans to be a relatively hands-off owner and not highly visible: “I think that’s probably the best place for owners. Owners that are standing out on the field and screaming at the umpires are probably not the right kind of guys, at least not the guys that I want to be … I’m not gonna be the guy who says this guy ought to be playing this position or this guy ought to be traded or this guy ought to be brought up. That’s the baseball experts’ role. I know I’m not that guy. But I think that I can help them and I think I have a sense of that line … is drawn where ownership and leadership gets involved, but I’ll know a lot more in four months.”
How close is this team? “This team seems like it’s ready. We’re one-eighth of the way through the season. You can’t tell that much but … the pieces are there.”
On his reaction to losing: “I’m really not a chair thrower, but clearly I get frustrated.”
