ESPN's Jeff Passan reports that the MLB Players Association voted unanimously to reject the owners‘ best and final offer on Tuesday afternoon's negotiations, meaning there will be no new collective bargaining agreement ahead of the league's 5 p.m. ET deadline to start the regular season on time.
The league has stated that if no deal was in place by then, Opening Day would be pushed back, and regular season games would be canceled and not rescheduled.
MLB had originally set Monday as the deadline to begin the season on its originally scheduled date of March 31, but the two sides met deep into the night and reportedly made enough progress that a deal by Tuesday seemed feasible. That optimism appears to have subsided after Tuesday's unanimous vote.
The owners‘ best and final offer reportedly featured no changes to the current competitive balance tax threshold, an added $5 million in pre-arbitration bonuses and an increase of the league minimum from $675,000 to $700,000, per Passan.
Players have started to leave Florida following the results of the vote, per Evan Drellich of The Athletic. It's unclear when the two sides plan to meet again.
