NEW YORK, Nov. 11 -- A salary cap rejected at the bargaining table could still become the subject of a fight over whether baseball's owners can impose it. But the legal route comes with a condition that matters as much as the payroll limit itself: owners would have to establish that negotiations had genuinely reached an impasse.

That is not another word for disagreement. With Major League Baseball's labour agreement expiring December 1, the distinction separates a difficult negotiation from a potential attempt to change employment terms without the players' consent. The union has not accepted the owners' proposed economic overhaul, and the expected lockout has not yet begun.

The MLB salary-cap dispute is therefore about more than which ...