Maury Brown of Forbes reports that spending on player payroll across baseball was down “dramatically” in 2018 and was the second-largest year-to-year decline since 2004. Citing figures from the Associated Press, Brown points out that MLB teams combined to spend $4.548 billion on player salaries, down $115.388 million from 2017. It is the first decline in player spending since 2010 ($2.911 billion from $2.913 billion) and the second-largest decline since 2004 ($204.8 million decline).
The biggest offenders were the Tigers, Yankees, and Dodgers. The Tigers went into a rebuilding mode, drastically cutting payroll. The Yankees and Dodgers raced to get under the luxury tax threshold. Only 12 of 30 teams spent more in 2018 than in 2017 on players
It's a bad time to be a free agent. Teams are getting so much more out of their farm systems now that even medium dollar free agent signings are unnecessary. Look at Donaldson and Brantley already this offseason. Their combined years and $'s are probably less than what one of them should have earned in a normal market. Corbin is the only player so far to sign for what might be considered a normal deal.
If the union wanted to close this gap between payroll and income, they would fight to get more money for younger players rather than fighting to secure it for long time veterans. I've long thought that a club benefited too much from the pre-arb and early arb years. In years 1-4 or so, a great player at the height of his performance will make less total than a typical 30 year old backup infielder will make in one season. In pre-arb years, a full-time starter with multiple All Star appearances will be paid just as much as the 25th man or a Rule 5 guy.
This would sound backward to the already backward players union, but if they wanted to guarantee money for veteran players, then they need to fight to increase salaries for the young players. Then, the gap between paying Lance Lynn (or whoever) and just rolling with Jon Gant (or whoever) won't seem so attractive.