It appears that any thought that Major League Baseball and the Player's Association were close on a new collective bargaining agreement early in the week was either naive, or altogether incorrect.
Tuesday's "best-and-final-offer" from the league was unanimously rejected by the MLBPA, with the owners seemingly not coming close to meeting players somewhere in the middle:
For those hopeful that the league won't cancel any more games beyond the first two series, you may want to shield your eyes, because the perspective from the league's 30 owners that the offer they made to players Tuesday was the best they could do doesn't appear to have simply been a negotiating tactic.
Andy Martino of SNY tweeted Thursday that four owners actually voted against the proposal ultimately sent to and rejected by the players, feeling it was "too generous." In an in-depth story, Martino added that there's a belief that even more owners would have voted against a proposal if the luxury tax first threshold went any higher than $220 million.
Evan Drellich of The Athletic hears that those four owners were Arte Moreno (Los Angeles Angels), Ken Kendrick (Arizona Diamondbacks), Chris Ilitich (Detroit Tigers) and Bob Castellini (Cincinnati Reds).
23 of the league's 30 owners need to agree to a new CBA for it to be proposed to the players. If you already have four defectors, that doesn't speak well to what will happen if the league tries to make more significant concessions to reach a fair deal with the Players's Association.
For reference, the luxury tax threshold in 2021 was $210 million, and the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres were the only teams to exceed it. Many teams -- even ones viewed as having elite financial wherewithal -- have treated the luxury tax threshold like a salary cap.
While they likely knew that the league would bring the number down a bit, the thinking from the MLBPA in attempting to raise the first luxury tax threshold to $238 million is that if teams are going to treat it like a salary cap that they don't go over, at least raise the number that teams will spend up until.
One thing that could spur action is that Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported Wednesday that many teams have to begin to return revenue to local TV rights holders once around 25 games are missed. If a couple more weeks of action are chopped off the schedule soon, owners wouldn't be that far out from having to return revenue that they already thought was in the bank.
Of course, it's entirely possible that's a compromise owners are willing to make if they are prepared to dig their heels in on negotiations with the MLBPA.
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