Bruce Meyer, the interim head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, said Monday he was “very surprised” by the details of the salary-cap proposal owners made four days earlier. The union’s analysis of the offer showed players would make less money overall.“I thought they would try harder to make it look good, and they didn’t even do that,” Meyer said on a video conference call with reporters.The players and owners both made opening economic proposals last week in a collective-bargaining process that’s expected to take until next spring at the earliest. MLB proposed that starting next season, teams could spend no more than $245.3 million on salary, along with a mandated floor of $171.2 million — a huge change for baseball, the only prominent league in the U.S. that does not have a cap and floor. Owners are framing the push for a cap around a desire to improve the sport’s competitive balance. Players, however, have long opposed a cap system on economic grounds and others, setting up a contentious labor battle. Cap systems typically come with a revenue split: an agreed-upon distribution of the overall money the sport takes in. MLB proposed players and owners start out with an even 50-50 split but the union said players already earn more than half. “Using MLB’s definition of revenue and player share as set forth in their proposal and their presentation to us, player share under their proposal would go down,” Meyer said. “Player share for this season, 2026, is projected to be well over 50 percent, using, again MLB’s definitions of revenues and what counts against player share.“Had MLB’s proposal been in place in 2026, players, we estimate, would lose over half a billion dollars.”Glen Caplin, an MLB spokesperson, responded with a statement Monday: “Our salary cap-and-floor proposal addresses our fans’ concerns by leveling the playing field while sharing baseball revenue with the players 50-50 like the other leagues. Under our proposal, major-league players will receive more compensation in year one of the system than in 2026. We are ready to listen if the MLBPA wants to counter our proposal at the bargaining table.”Throughout these negotiations, a lot of the fights that await the players and owners will center on how different things are counted.Meyer argued that the share of money that goes to the players or the owners — in this case, the 50-50 split MLB is proposing — “doesn’t tell you anything unless you know how ‘share’ is defined.”