The battle between the Major League Baseball owners and its Players Association won't really get going until the Collective Bargaining Agreement runs out in early December, but that hasn't stopped the two sides from exchanging proposals in advance of that.

Earlier this week, the league sent over its newest batch of proposals, which are all contingent on the players accepting a salary cap and a salary floor.

Here's what you need to know about how these impact the league, the Seattle Mariners, and Mariners fans:

The league has proposed reducing the season from 162 games to 154. This is not without precedent, as the league played 154 games up until 1960. The league would mandate that Monday be an off day for each team each week, in most cases. This would take place starting in 2029.

How it impacts the Mariners:

Well, in theory, this is a good thing. Mariners players are guaranteed a day off every week, which keeps players healthier. Players being healthy allows them to stay on the field, and it also assures the M's will be able to put the best team on the field more often.

Bullpen arms can be more protected and the roster churn would be lessened because there would be less shuffling of pitchers to the minor leagues and back.

On the downside, less players would get called up to the big leagues, which impacts money for those players, and the ability to say they were major leaguers.

How it impacts the league

Well, each team loses eight games, and four likely home games, meaning that teams lose revenue. However, the league has said that 1-2 games each week will be played on Monday as part of a new exclusive broadcast window, which is how the league makes up some of that revenue lost.

Furthermore, a 154-game season means that records will have a harder time being broken, which makes the history books less likely to be changed in many cases.

How it impacts the fans

From a practical standpoint, I don't think many fans would be upset at the season being reduced by eight games. Several fans think its too long as it is. However, if there are less home games, that means owners could raise the prices on fans, making games tougher to access.

Furthermore, that "Monday broadcast window?" Of course, that could be put on a streaming service, making life tougher for fans too.

Another way for the league to make up revenue? Add more games to the playoffs. Fans will get more baseball, the league will get more revenue, and the Mariners will need more pitching, should they get back to the playoffs.

This would also take place in 2029.

And this is the one that has fans most up in arms already. Here's how it would all work:

In the wild card round, the team that finishes as the No. 3 seed (the Houston Astros this year in the AL), would get a choice of who it plays in the wild card round between the No. 5 seed (Boston Red Sox) and No. 6 seed (Chicago White Sox).

The team not chosen would have played the No. 4 seed New York Yankees.

In the division series, the No. 1 seed would get to choose which wild card winner it wants to play.

This would take place beginning in 2027. It would create some interesting conversation and bulletin board material, but it seems a little overkill. Why can't we just re-seed after the wild card round to ensure that the No. 1 seed has the lowest-remaining opponent?

This would take place in 2027.

Regardless of what you think of any of these proposals, it doesn't really matter much right now. The players have said they won't agree to a salary cap and floor, so until that's settled, any of these "down-ballot" issues just aren't even really on the table.

The CBA runs out on Dec. 1 at 11:59 p.m. ET.