The Major League Baseball Players Association plans to reject the league’s proposed salary cuts – and reportedly will suggest a longer regular season – when it makes a counterproposal by the end of the week, as the sport reaches a critical juncture in its efforts to start the 2020 season amid a global pandemic.

In a social media post late Wednesday night, Washington Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer, a member of the union’s executive board, wrote that players had “no reason to engage with MLB” over pay cuts, and challenged the league to open its books if it wants to justify that proposal.

“There’s no justification to accept a 2nd pay cut based upon the current information the union has received,” Scherzer wrote. “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.”

The union believes the matter of player compensation for 2020 was settled in a March 26 agreement that called for players to receive prorated shares of their salaries based on the number of games played. The league contends that agreement pertained only to games with fans, and that games in empty stadiums require further financial concessions from the players to account for diminished revenues.

Baseball hopes to open “spring training 2.0” in mid-June and launch an 82-game regular season around July 4, playing at least initially without fans. To do so would require an agreement to be reached by next week. The sides must also agree to the health and safety protocols for navigating a season amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The Athletic and ESPN reported late Wednesday that the union’s counterproposal is expected to propose a longer regular season, perhaps of 100 or more games, while insisting on players receiving their full, prorated salaries for 2020.

Under the March agreement, and assuming an 82-game season, players would make roughly half their original 2020 salaries – amounting to a total loss of around $2 billion in aggregate salaries. But in an opening economic proposal delivered to the union Tuesday, MLB proposed further cuts that would get progressively deeper for players making the most money, some of whom would earn less than a quarter of their original salaries.

MLB has claimed it would lose money for every game played without fans, unless the players agree to reduced salaries. The union is skeptical of those claims and has sought documentation from the league to back them up.

The 2020 schedule could be a point of further negotiation, with players seeking more regular season games in order to receive greater portions of their prorated salaries, and MLB seeking to play a full or expanded postseason, which brings in the bulk of its television revenue. The league fears a second wave of coronavirus could shut down operations before or during the postseason.

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