MLB lockout: Owners taking 'threatening tone' as deadline looms

The owners previously set Monday as the deadline to agree on terms for the new collective bargaining agreement so that no part of the season would have to be canceled. Drellich reported Sunday that progress had been made between owners and the Players Union, but that "the gap on key issues remains large." 

As ESPN's Jeff Passan wrote, these negotiations have been going on at a slow and fruitless pace for a year -- and players are fed up with how little to no development is being made.

"The players are angry at the trajectory of the negotiations," Passan said, "which have inched along for almost a year with little demonstrable progress. More than that, they're tired of the game they love saying, in ways both active and passive, it does not love them back."

The owners are able to end the lockout whenever they see fit and function under the guidelines of the former CBA while negotiations continue on the new one. They have not chosen that avenue as the threat of canceling parts of the season loom large.