The Simple Reason Why The Seattle Mariners Are Suddenly One Of Baseball's Biggest Spenders

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The Seattle Mariners made the first big splash of baseball's hot stove season by agreeing to a $240 million contract with Robinson Cano, the third largest contract in baseball history. While the Mariners are not traditionally one of baseball's biggest spenders, nobody should be surprised that they are throwing money around now.

The Mariners recently agreed to a new local television contract with DirecTV Sports Networks that is estimated to be worth $2 billion over 17 years. With an average annual value of $118 million, that is a $73 million increase over their previous deal which paid the team $45 million per year.

In addition, every team will get a $25 million increase in revenue from Major League Baseball's new national television contracts which go into effect in 2014.

In other words, the Mariners will see a $98 million increase in revenue every year just from their television contracts.

That also means the Mariners are not done spending money this year.

Cano is probably not enough to make the Mariners contenders. To justify that deal, they now need to add at least one more big name. Rumors have surfaced in recent days that the Mariners may trade for former Cy Young winner David Price of the Rays.

To justify giving up prospects for Price, the Mariners would almost certainly sign him to a long-term contract. But as we saw above, they now have the money to do it.