One force that could be driving Beane’s spending spur of late could be a revenue sharing type issue. I’m pretty sure that MLB requires every team to keep their payroll above a certain level to receive some of the benefits of revenue sharing. I have no idea if this is it, but it is possible that Beane’s payroll for this and the foreseeable future with all of the youngsters, dropped below that mark and he had to make some signings to get back up to the acceptable threshold.

That is straight speculation on my part though and should be taken with a grain of salt.