Seattle Mariners owner John Stanton non-committal on the prospect of pursuing Shohei Ohtani as $600,000,000 free agency looms

Seattle Mariners owner John Stanton recently opened up about his views on Los Angeles Angels ace Shohei Ohtani.

With a 6-1 win over the San Diego Padres, the Mariners registered their seventh-game winning streak and are on pace to make it to the playoffs once more.

This year the Seattle Mariners hosted the Major League Baseball All-Star Game where Angels ace Shohei Ohtani also took part.

With the free agency looming over, there are a lot of speculations about the Mariners signing up the phenom Shohei Ohtani.

However, in a recent interview, Mariners owner John Stanton refused to give out any clear signs about the same:

“We focus on developing great players. We believe that the best player for us over time is going to be a young player that we’re able to have all the way through our system and develop.” – John Stanton said in an interview.

Will the Seattle Mariners sign up Shohei Ohtani as free agency looms?

Los Angeles Angels starting pitcher Shohei Ohtani (17) throws during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the San Francisco Giants in Anaheim, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Stanton believes that the Seattle Mariners as a team beholds winning capabilities. According to him, Ohtani is definitely an amazing player and he would be looking forward to having a talk with Ohtani.

However, he believes that the team in itself is performing to the best of its abilities and Ohtani will not necessarily add or subtract anything mention-worthy to the team:

“We will look at free agents every offseason to fill needs. From our point of view, Ohtani is the unicorn. We’ll clearly look at him, we’ll clearly be in the conversation. But I think we’ve got a great team with or without him.” – John Stanton said in the interview.

Shohei Ohtani has been an All-Staar thrice in his MLB career. Currently, he leads MLB in 40 homers (tied with Matt Olson), 7 triples, a .666 slugging rate and 1.076 OPS.

He ranks first with a batting average of .185 and is placed fourth with 165 strikeouts. He is on pace to have the greatest season in the history of baseball.