Sources - MLB to cancel another week of games if deal not reached by Tuesday night

Major League Baseball plans to cancel another week of regular-season games if it can't agree to a new collective-bargaining agreement with the MLB Players Association by Tuesday night, adding another layer of pressure onto already-tense negotiations as the league's lockout nears its 100th day, sources familiar with the situation told ESPN.

The urgency to strike a labor deal ratcheted up Monday as the league suggested Tuesday was the deadline for a 162-game season and the players to receive full pay and full service time. The union has held firm, even after MLB canceled the first week of the season, that 162 games of pay and service time are central to any deal struck and they have threatened to withhold expanded playoffs without them.

While optimism was cautious for the planned in-person meeting Tuesday, both parties recognize that the complicated labor talks could run into an obstacle if MLB cancels another batch of games, prompting pay and service to become another potentially problematic divide.

In a proposal Monday, the league lessened chasm on the competitive-balance tax, the primary issue dividing the parties leading into the league's cancellation of games last Tuesday. MLB's offer bumped the first CBT threshold from $220 million to $228 million, sources said, still shy of the $238 million request the union held to Monday in its written response to the league's previous proposal. The growth of the CBT proposal to $238 million in the fifth year of a potential deal remained one of the sticking points for players, whose proposal seeks a $263 million first threshold in 2026, sources said.

MLB tying Tuesday to full pay and service, which was first reported by The Athletic, adds a long-expected pressure point to talks.