Discussing his team’s payroll, Stanton said, "We’re roughly the 15th-largest market in baseball. Because, finally, Mariners ownership has said the quiet part out loud. Home to Amazon and Costco and Starbucks and Microsoft, whose president, by the way, is now part of the Mariners' ownership group? Whether he intended to or not, it’s fitting that there’s a key omission in Stanton’s claim that their "objective is to have a sustainable franchise over a long period of time." He doesn’t say a sustainable winning franchise or a sustainable championship franchise.