With less than 10 days before the players are scheduled to strike, Major League Baseball and the Players Association met again Tuesday, with the principal topic of discussion being the core economic issues of the luxury tax and revenue sharing.

Management's labor lawyer Rob Manfred would not cite specifics of what was accomplished Tuesday, but he did say in a conference call that the owners have made the last proposal.

"Our purpose in terms of the revenue sharing and the tax is to take money, redistribute it among the clubs, and place some sort of a speed bump on the very highest payroll clubs," Manfred said. "But we think that whatever mitigation happens at the top end will be more than made up for by additional spending by the revenue sharing recipients in an effort to raise their payrolls and be more competitive. At the end of the day, our biggest concern with respect to the proposals that we had on the table is that we will actually spend more than less."

Although Players Association officials declined to talk about Manfred's comments, the union has in the past maintained that restricting the highest spending teams will likely result in a salary decrease and cause a drag on spending.

Baseball players received a memo Aug. 17 in which union head Donald Fehr said that baseball owners were attempting "a wholesale attack on the salary structure."

Owners have proposed having teams with 40-man payrolls of over $102 million pay a tax of as much as 50 percent on the amount above the threshold. In the memo, total revenue sharing numbers -- including the tax -- would reportedly rise to almost $87 million for the New York Yankees, with the New York Mets doling out almost $36 million.

"I can't quite imagine how one would characterize -- at least if one were attempting to be accurate -- an increase in revenue sharing among the clubs and a competitive balance tax that was going to at most impact a handful of teams . . . as a wholesale attack on the salary structure," Manfred said. "I find that to be a baffling characterization."

According to the memo, seven teams would hypothetically have to pay the tax next season, with five teams currently resting right under the threshold. If a total of 12 teams are affected, union officials could theoretically say the "handful" characterization is inaccurate.

Union officials have been wary of the verbiage management has been using to describe the tax. While the luxury tax has been termed "the competitive balance tax," the union maintains that there is no guarantee that revenue sharing recipients will spend the additional money on payroll. However, the union has also complicated the process by refusing to agree to the owners' suggestion of a payroll floor. Because the union says it stands by a free market system, it is -- in principle -- against agreeing to a cap or floor.

Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks, who agreed to spend $252 million on a 10-year contract for shortstop Alex Rodriguez, told the Dallas Morning News on Saturday that "if (the owner's luxury tax) system is implemented, the Texas Rangers will be under the threshold.''

While union officials point to a comment of that nature to suggest that the owners' proposal will cause cap-like effects, Manfred said he believed comments made by owners including Hicks and San Diego Padres owner John Moores -- who told the New York Times on Tuesday that he was prepared to sit out a season to help resolve the differences -- were not an issue at the negotiating table.

"If the owners really wanted a salary cap, they know how to propose a salary cap and they would had instructed me to do so," Manfred said. "Instead, we approached this negotiation with a modest set of proposals that alone or in combination could not be fairly characterized as a salary cap. Instead, what they are are a set of proposals that are designed to reduce revenue disparity in the industry. The single biggest change will be a reduction in revenue disparity as a result of these proposals."

"Our goal remains to get an agreement before any days are lost," Manfred said.

The union last week set a strike date of Aug. 30 if no agreement was reached before then.

Darren Rovell, who covers sports business for ESPN.com, can be reached at Darren.rovell@espnpub.com.