The seats on the bus.

For five years now, a story has persisted within baseball: When Major League Baseball and the Players Association last reached a collective agreement in 2016, the union was too focused on creature comforts, on commuting. luxury bus. That the players have lost sight of the most important part of trading, the basic economy.

“These guys were talking about getaway days and more money for meals, and the union leadership was afraid to talk to them,” a team source said.

But like most labor relations and economics issues in baseball, the reality is more complicated. While there is one side that maintains that the main flaw with players was focusing on quality of life issues, another says that is wrong.

“Literally before the ink dried on the 2016 (CBA), I remember reading the story two-seater on the bus,” another industry source said. “This is total bullshit. This is total crap.

For those who say the narrative is wrong, the strongest argument probably lies in the proposals the union actually made to the league in 2016. Among them:

• The elimination of teams that abandon their draft picks when signing free agents, which was intended to encourage teams to bid on players. • A significantly higher Competitive Balance Tax (or CBT) threshold, which would have increased the amount of money a team can spend on payroll before being penalized • A new formula for determining the draft order. Rather than the current system, which is based entirely on the previous year’s wins and losses record and rewards the worst team with the best pick, the draft position would have been calculated with a 60-40 formula: 60 percent based on the record and 40 percent on other factors, including a club’s market size. This was aimed at reducing tanking.