Major League Baseball’s Average Salaries 1964-2010

Here is the scoop on baseball’s average salaries over the years from a true baseball-specific resource, baseball-almanac.com (and checkout The Economic History of Major League Baseball if you really want to go deep)

Since 1964, the average major league player’s salary has declined only four times.  The last time, believe it or not, was in 2004.

But 11 times, the average salary has increased by more than 20%, including six (!) seasons in a row from 1977-1982.

In 1977 and 1991, average salaries increasing a whopping 41 and 43 percents, respectively.

It looks like the commissioner’s office has gotten the situation under control.  The 2000’s have been relatively meek in terms of increasing average salaries – only single digit percentage increases (and the aforementioned loss) since 2002.

1964	$14,863.00
1965	$14,341.00	-$522.00	-3.51%
1966	$17,664.00	$3,323.00	23.17%
1967	$19,000.00	$1,336.00	7.56%
1968	$20,632.00	$1,632.00	8.59%
1969	$24,909.00	$4,277.00	20.73%
1970	$29,303.00	$4,394.00	17.64%
1971	$31,543.00	$2,240.00	7.64%
1972	$34,092.00	$2,549.00	8.08%
1973	$36,566.00	$2,474.00	7.26%
1974	$40,839.00	$4,273.00	11.69%
1975	$44,676.00	$3,837.00	9.40%
1976	$52,300.00	$7,624.00	17.07%
1977	$74,000.00	$21,700.00	41.49%
1978	$97,800.00	$23,800.00	32.16%
1979	$121,900.00	$24,100.00	24.64%
1980	$146,500.00	$24,600.00	20.18%
1981	$196,500.00	$50,000.00	34.13%
1982	$245,000.00	$48,500.00	24.68%
1983	$289,000.00	$44,000.00	17.96%
1984	$325,900.00	$36,900.00	12.77%
1985	$368,998.00	$43,098.00	13.22%
1986	$410,517.00	$41,519.00	11.25%
1987	$402,579.00	-$7,938.00	-1.93%
1988	$430,688.00	$28,109.00	6.98%
1989	$489,539.00	$58,851.00	13.66%
1990	$589,483.00	$99,944.00	20.42%
1991	$845,383.00	$255,900.00	43.41%
1992	$1,012,424.00	$167,041.00	19.76%
1993	$1,062,780.00	$50,356.00	4.97%
1994	$1,154,486.00	$91,706.00	8.63%
1995	$1,094,440.00	-$60,046.00	-5.20%
1996	$1,101,455.00	$7,015.00	0.64%
1997	$1,314,420.00	$212,965.00	19.33%
1998	$1,378,506.00	$64,086.00	4.88%
1999	$1,726,282.68	$347,776.68	25.23%
2000	$1,987,543.03	$261,260.35	15.13%
2001	$2,343,710.00	$356,166.97	17.92%
2002	$2,385,903.07	$42,193.07	1.80%
2003	$2,555,476.00	$169,572.93	7.11%
2004	$2,486,609.00	-$68,867.00	-2.69%
2005	$2,632,655.00	$146,046.00	5.87%
2006	$2,866,544.00	$233,889.00	8.88%
2007	$2,944,556.00	$78,012.00	2.72%
2008	$3,154,845.14	$210,289.14	7.14%
2009	$3,240,206.81	$85,361.67	2.71%
2010	$3,297,828.37	$57,621.56	1.78%