Brian Cashman has come to the defense of Robinson Cano, who departed from the New York Yankees to sign a 10-year, $240 million deal with the Seattle Mariners.

"He had 240 million reasons to go to Seattle and if I were him, I would have done the same thing," Cashman said.

The Yankees had tried to sign Cano since last spring, but never had the feeling they were close on anything, according to sources.

"I didn't want to let Robbie go, but we gave it our best bullet with $175M for seven [years]," Cashman said. "Someone took him [from] us for a lot more."