Report: MLBPA Unanimously Rejects MLB's Final CBA Offer Ahead of Deadline

The Major League Baseball Players Association unanimously rejected the owners' final offer on a new collective bargaining agreement ahead of Tuesday's 5 p.m. ET deadline, according to ESPN's Jeff Passan:

MLB's owners reportedly made the offer to the players association before the deadline that the league set with a number of proposals that fell well short of reported requests by the players. 

"We thought there was a path to a deal last night and that both sides were closing in on the major issues," a league spokesperson told ESPN's Jesse Rogers. "They couldn't make us a CBT [competitive balance tax] proposal last night, so we agreed to extend the deadline to exhaust every option.

"The MLBPA had a decidedly different tone today and made proposals inconsistent with the prior discussions. We will be making our best offer before the 5 p.m. deadline for the MLBPA that's a fair deal for players and clubs."

But the players rejected that their tone or approach changed:

Given the gulf in the negotiations and the league's insistence that the players had changed their tone and its take-it-or-leave it offer, there will naturally be the impression that the owners weren't negotiating in good faith.

And previous reports noted the owners were fine with a later start to the regular season and canceled games, as they ostensibly hoped the players would back off their requests to receive their paychecks.

"We're just trying not to get screwed," one player told ESPN's Jeff Passan about the labor negotiations.

A work stoppage will come down to how much each side is willing to compromise and how long each side is willing to wait out the other side. Generally, a longer work stoppage would put more pressure on the players, whose livelihoods are baseball.

But the players, at least for the moment, appear willing to dig in and avoid taking a bad deal. Given MLB's negotiating tactics to this point, an abridged or even lost season always seemed possible.

Now, missed games are assured.