A number of agents believe that MLB teams will shrink their budgets after the owners' lockout ends and a new collective bargaining agreement is reached, which could squeeze the earning potential for veteran free agents, according to ESPN's Buster Olney:
Buster OlneyThere is an expectation among agents that following the owners' lockout, there will be teams that downsize their budgets (like the Marlins) to account for the losses -- and it'll be the veteran FAs, the rank-and-file players, who absorb most of the impact of that.
One of those veterans, Josh Reddick, responded to Olney's tweet by noting that "plenty of veterans can get the job done better than plenty of younger players.