Sources: Four MLB owners were against league’s 'last and best' proposal — and this complicates a future compromise

On Tuesday, before Major League Baseball chief negotiator Dan Halem presented to the Players Association the league’s “best and final offer” before canceling regular season games, all 30 team owners gathered on a Zoom call.

On the call, which was previously unreported, MLB polled each owner to make sure it had the 23 votes required to support the proposal.

The tone of the Zoom call, according to three sources, made it clear that even more owners would land in the “no” camp if the first CBT threshold rose above $220 million, the number they were about to propose.

The problem with that? The Players Association has made it abundantly clear that it will not accept a CBT threshold below $230 million.

This divide underscores how long this work stoppage has the potential to be. It’s difficult to see either side compromising on this key point — and the CBT is hardly the only area where significant differences remain.

Essentially, an offer that the PA found far too limited struck four owners as too generous, with others threatening to join that side. And you wonder why we’re not watching spring training games this week?

For all the talk of “good faith” and “bad faith” in these negotiations, the above details make clear that it is not that simple.

Halem and commissioner Rob Manfred can, in good faith, personally want the season to begin on time. But that they are already dealing with four no’s on a non-starter proposal underscores the challenge of holding together their coalition, and assembling an offer to the players that small and large-market owners alike can live with.

Some of the more hawkish owners — who claim financial hardship without showing their books — felt on Tuesday that they had already made a significant compromise in agreeing to a 12-team expanded playoff field, rather than 14 teams, which MLB strongly preferred.

Owners also felt that by dropping CBT rates back to status quo levels, they had made another significant move in the players’ direction. Players found it absurd to frame a return to a status quo with which they were deeply unhappy as a concession, and it’s easy to see their point on that one.

A faction of hawkish owners has long made it difficult to assemble a proposal that strikes the owners as fair. At the owners meetings in Orlando, Fla. last month, one attendee said that some owners vowed to “not go up one penny” from the current CBT threshold of $210 million.

In trying to strike a balance of pleasing those owners and others — like the Yankees’ Hal Steinbrenner and the Mets’ Steve Cohen — who want a less punitive CBT and a full season, Halem was forced to present a proposal that was dead on arrival when it landed on the players’ table Tuesday.

On their own Zoom call, the players expressed a unanimous opinion to reject the proposal and its $220 million CBT threshold.

Soon after, Manfred announced the cancelation of regular season games.

Going forward, it’s hard to see exactly how the commissioner will be able to both please 23 owners and the union. And perhaps more to the point, it’s hard to see enough owners recognizing the urgency of getting back on the field.