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The MLBPA’s counter-proposal to the league’s economic plan is expected to be sent this week and, according to multiple reports, it will wholly reject the sliding scale mechanism offered Tuesday by ownership. Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic report that the players will not budge on prorated salaries and will instead counter with a longer season — likely in the range of 100 games. Ken Davidoff and Joel Sherman of the New York Post suggest that the proposal will include more than 100 games, with Sherman tweeting separately that the union could seek to play as many as 110 games. Doing so would seemingly require pushing regular-season play into October.

It’s not clear at this point what compromises will be offered by the Players Association. Sherman and Davidoff indicate that “many” members of the union appear open to deferring salaries beyond 2020, though, which could help ownership to avoid an upfront hit. Rosenthal and Drellich detail some other potential compromises that have been “loosely” discussed.

League owners have contended that losses without fans in attendance could be so great that it’s not worth playing games if players are paid at prorated levels. A presentation was made to the MLBPA at one point in an effort to illustrate those claims, but the players’ side has remained skeptical. ESPN’s Jeff Passan writes that the union recently submitted another request for documentation providing transparency into local and national television revenue, sponsorship revenue and projections from teams. The union also did so back in March.

Clearly, the league has not accommodated that request. Max Scherzer, one of eight players constituting the MLBPA executive subcommittee, tweeted a firm aversion to even “engag[ing] with MLB in any further compensation reductions” and adding that “MLB’s economic strategy would completely change if all documentation were to become public information.”

While both sides are surely motivated to eventually resume play, both have put forth offers that will obviously be rejected by the other party. The players “essentially pledged to ignore the league’s proposal and instead offer one of their own,” Passan writes, illustrating the extent of the MLBPA’s dissatisfaction with the sliding scale. And if the league contends that prorated salaries without fans would require operating at a loss on a per-game basis, owners are likely to be equally dismissive of an expanded schedule without further salary reduction.

So, is there a middle ground to be reached at all?

The players feel that the league’s proposal effectively asks them to take an average 38 percent pay cut on top of the prorated salaries to which they’ve already agreed, as FiveThirtyEight’s Travis Sawchik recently outlined (Twitter thread). The hit would’ve been larger for baseball’s best-paid players, of course; the game’s highest-paid players would earn in the $$6-7MM range prior to postseason bonuses. League-minimum and pre-arbitration players would’ve taken a lesser hit but still received only about 46 percent of their full-season salary (92 percent of their prorated salary).

Sawchik suggests a 19 percent cut from prorated salaries would be a middle ground, so it’s perhaps no surprise that The Athletic report contains speculation about players taking an 81-game prorated salary but still playing 100 total games. That arrangement would amount to players taking a 19 percent hit on top of their prorated agreement.

The strong language from Scherzer last night casts some doubt upon whether the players will genuinely consider additional cuts, especially if the union plans to truly hold firm on its request to see additional documentation from ownership. As things currently stand, it’s hard to believe the league will consider the reported union counter any more than the union considered the owners’ sliding scale. Significant ground needs to be covered before an agreement is reached.

10:55pm: The MLBPA does indeed plan to send its proposal to the league by week’s end, Passan tweets.

10:22pm: Nationals ace Max Scherzer, the team’s union representative and a member of the MLBPA executive council, issued a statement on Twitter, saying: “After discussing the latest developments with the rest of the players there’s no reason to engage with MLB in any further compensation reductions. We have previously negotiated a pay cut in the version of prorated salaries, and there’s no justification to accept a 2nd pay cut based upon the current information the union has received. I’m glad to hear other players voicing the same viewpoint and believe MLB’s economic strategy would completely change if all documentation were to become public information.”

8:46pm: Some players held a call today and were “pretty galvanized” in their distaste for MLB’s proposal, Heyman tweets. It’s in question whether the players will even make a counteroffer, Heyman and Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com hear.

10:11am: Major League Baseball presented its long-awaited economic plan to the Players Association yesterday, and the union’s reaction was predictable: extreme disappointment. As reported by ESPN’s Jeff Passan and Jesse Rogers, the sliding scale proposed to players would see the game’s league-minimum players would be paid about $262K of their would-be $563,500 salaries — roughly 46 percent (owners surely prefer to portray it as 92 percent of their prorated salaries in an 82-game season). The game’s top stars would be earning just over 22 percent of their full-season salary (44 percent of their prorated salaries). Many see the scale as an effort to create a divide within the union (lesser-paid players versus well-compensated stars).

The MLBPA is expected to reject the league’s proposal and counter in the coming days, per Passan and Rogers, with one point of compromise being a longer season. Playing more games would increase revenue available to owners and thus provide the players with a larger portion of their salaries. Interestingly, Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich of The Athletic report (subscription required) that the league’s sliding-scale proposal did not include the expanded postseason format that many were anticipating.

Expanding to a 14-team postseason format in 2020 would create additional revenue, and the players have previously been said to be amenable to such a schedule. Opting not to include it is strange, as the 14-team format originated with the commissioner’s office; it’s hard not to wonder if the league’s omission was an effort to make the players’ side include a league initiative in its counter, then claim it as a compromise upon accepting. Regardless of the motives at play, the timing of a counteroffer from the union is unclear. There’s no meeting between the two sides today, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets, but agents, players and the union will discuss the proposal among themselves. The New York Post’s Joel Sherman writes that the two sides left yesterday’s meeting without a followup scheduled.

Players have had a wide range of reactions to the proposal, but they’re generally unified in rejecting the sliding scale structure — at least in its present form. Andrew Miller, one of eight players on the union’s executive subcommittee, told Rosenthal and Drellich that he’s “disappointed in where MLB is starting the discussion” but spoke with optimism about the possibility of finding a palatable middle ground. Mets righty Marcus Stroman tweeted yesterday, “This season is not looking promising,” while Brewers lefty Brett Anderson blasted the league for its efforts to make the game’s “best, most marketable players potentially look like the bad guys.”

Several agents spoke to Drellich and Rosenthal about player reaction to the proposal, with one indicating the “collective response” was unprecedented and that players are “livid.” Another scoffed at the very notion that MLB would present a proposal it knew would be so immediately rejected, lamenting that “there is so much distrust on both sides that we can’t be pragmatic adults.”

That distrust seems to be the core of the issue. The MLBPA has repeatedly cast substantial doubt on the league’s persistent claims that revenue losses are so substantial that this level of pay reduction is effectively a necessity. At the same time, teams have seemingly yet to provide the player side with sufficiently transparent evidence of that claim. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweeted late last week that an internal memo sent by the union to its players expressed frustration over the fact that Major League Baseball has still not responded to a March 13 request for financial documentation outlining the extent of revenue losses without fans in attendance. There’s no indication that has changed.

On the one hand, it’s easy to imagine that there’s a degree of legitimacy to ownership claims that additional cuts are necessary to mitigate losses in a season without gate and concession revenue. Is this extent of additional reductions in their proposal truly reflective of their economic picture, though? That seems doubtful, and the MLBPA claims it has yet to see sufficient evidence in this arena. Teams’ reluctance to open the books isn’t surprising, particularly given the manner in which both sides habitually and strategically leak “private” documents. (We’re all following along with this ugly billionaires-versus-millionaires quarrel for a reason, after all.) Perhaps the reluctance stems from the simple fact that their claims won’t be substantiated; perhaps it’s a lack of good faith that nothing will become public. Both could be factors.

Whatever the reasons, the rampant distrust displayed by both parties is increasingly unbecoming to a fanbase that is desperately craving some piece of normalcy amid a global pandemic that has created an unprecedented upheaval of everyday life. With every day that goes by, the optics of the situation deteriorate, and we inch closer to further delays of what will already be a truncated season. Both sides continue to express optimism about playing games in 2020 — Brewers owner Mark Attanasio did so yesterday, as did Miller in his comments to The Athletic — but the public back-and-forth became tired long ago.

6:01pm: Jesse Rogers of ESPN.com has more details on MLB’s proposed cuts, tweeting that a player on a $35MM salary would make roughly $7.8MM, someone at $10MM would earn in the $2.9MM vicinity and a $1MM player would pull in $434K. ESPN’s Jeff Passan has further info here.

5:00pm: “We made a proposal to the union that is completely consistent with the economic realities facing our sport. We look forward to a responsive proposal from the MLBPA,” MLB spokesman Pat Courtney stated (via Jon Heyman of MLB Network, on Twitter).

3:39pm: The MLBPA’s “very disappointed” with MLB’s proposal, Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic report (on Twitter). While the league offered to share more playoff revenue, the players still don’t feel as if they’d do well in this situation. They believe they’d still have to make “massive” additional cuts, Drellich tweets. Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter link) adds that the two sides are also far apart on health and safety issues. The union higher-ups will hold further discussions with the players before deciding whether to continue with negotiations, according to Joel Sherman of the New York Post (via Twitter).

1:58pm: Major League Baseball owners have agreed to a revised economic plan for a shortened 2020 season and will present the proposal to the MLB Players Association today. Per USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, owners have scrapped the idea of a 50-50 revenue split and will instead suggest a sliding scale of pay reductions for players. Those with the largest guaranteed salaries would surrender the largest percentage of their salaries, while players with the smallest salaries would earn “most” of their guaranteed money, Nightengale adds.

Any league proposal figures to be met with some pushback from the players’ side. It’s hard to imagine that ownership will simply structure a reduction scale in such a fashion that players immediately accept. It’s notable in light of the early report on the proposal, too, that what constitutes “most” of a lesser-compensated player’s salary seems likely to be defined differently by owners and players.

Players, according to Travis Sawchick of FiveThirtyEight (Twitter links), have been amenable to the expanded 14-team postseason structure and are open to playing more games than in the floated 82-game schedule — both of which would create additional revenue for all parties. ESPN’s Jeff Passan suggested this morning that the MLBPA’s counter-proposal could indeed push for more than 82 games (Twitter link, with video). Deferred payments on 2020 salaries have been an oft-speculated point of compromise as well. Ownership is already deferring payouts of the signing bonuses in this year’s shortened MLB Draft.

It’s in everyone’s best interest to come to terms both on financials and health/safety guidelines as quickly as possible. The league’s longstanding hope has been for a mid-June reboot of training camps and an early-July start to the season — presumably over Independence Day weekend.

Had the initial March agreement between the two sides held up, that might well be more plausible, but that document confoundingly neglected to address what would happen should games be played in the absence of fans (or at least to address it in precise terms). As such, the MLBPA has been waiting on today’s forthcoming economic proposal for several weeks. The initial plan, the aforementioned revenue split, was rejected outright by MLBPA chief Tony Clark before the league could even formally present it.