I think the owners are already getting smart about spending their money on washed-up veterans. I've never seen so many "proven" players who are still able to play at or above replacement level without contracts this late in the offseason.

"It strikes me that these deals are going to end up distorting the free agent market. By keeping these players until they are starting their decline phases, not only are teams saving money now, they're saving their fellow owners money later."

While I agree that this trend will change the complexion of the free agent market (not sure if "distort" is the right word here, since it's pretty far from a free market as-is), I don't think the net effect will be to save the owners that much money.

As for whether this will save owners money in the long run, I'm not exactly sure this is the case. For one thing, teams are typically buying out one or two free agent years, and at least one of these extra years is usually only controlled via a rather large team option (something like $15M for 1 year). And even if the teams exercise their options (which really are nice for ownership, given their low risk), we'll be talking free agency like two years later rather than four.

And are 30 year old players really going to get that dissimilar a contract from a 28 year old? In many cases, a player is still in his "prime" at that point. Perhaps by pushing back the age at which the player signs, the owners will in fact be paying for more of the player's decline years rather than the prime ones.

One area where they could make some headway would be in contract lengths, decreasing the "albatross factor". It'll be tougher signing a 30 year old to a 6-8 year deal than a 28 year old.

And on some level, there will be a substitution effect; when owners save money by keeping their "home-grown" players around longer, they will in effect have more cash to spend on free-agent talent. While this might not make up the entire difference from cheaper young talent, it will certainly eat in to some of it.