MLB, MLBPA to continue negotiations Wednesday (UPDATED)

Major League Baseball and the MLBPA met for over 17 hours in their latest bargaining session with talks ending around 3 a.m. Wednesday morning. The discussions ended when the union reportedly asked for time for its executive board to review MLB’s latest proposal. The players are expected to officially respond Wednesday morning.

Both sides tried to keep things quieter Tuesday, but some details of negotiations did emerge. There was some progress made although gaps still remain. The league offered to increase the Competitive Balance Tax to $230 million starting in this season and have it rise to $242 million by the end of the five-year deal. However, a new tier to the luxury-tax system is also tied to that proposal.

The league is also pushing for an international draft and has tied the elimination of the qualifying offer for free agents to the issue.

The owners had set Tuesday as the deadline for cancelling more games and communicated that it was the last chance that the union had for a full 162-game season. That comes a week after indicating that a full season would be impossible when Rob Manfred cancelled the first two series of the regular season last week in Jupiter, Florida. The two sides agreed to push the deadline back to Wednesday to allow the players to speak with their player reps.

We will have updates here as soon as they become available.

UPDATE - It looks like the biggest issue remaining between the two sides is a potential international draft which the league has tied to draft pick compensation.