Rob Manfred, Tony Clark speaking nicely, but there's little reason for optimism about a new MLB CBA

ATLANTA — Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred recently put a happy face on negotiations between management and the Players Association.

This despite plenty of people on both sides privately believing those talks won’t result in anything but a work stoppage come Dec. 2.

"Have you ever heard me say that I’m anything but optimistic about getting an agreement?" Manfred said. "I am a believer in the process. We’re meeting on a regular basis, and I’m hopeful we find a way to get an agreement by Dec. 1."

Manfred and Tony Clark, the executive director of the Players Association, both spoke on the field before Game 1 of the World Series at Minute Maid Park.

The pair shook hands and chatted briefly — and amiably, it appeared — before each conducted separate impromptu media sessions, Clark behind home plate near the backstop toward the third-base side and Manfred near the Astros’ dugout on the first-base side (where he was heckled by some Houston fans about the discipline handed down in January 2020 regarding the sign-stealing scandal).

"It’s hard to characterize progress," said Manfred, a labor lawyer by trade who previously served as MLB’s lead negotiator before being elected commissioner in 2015. "Progress is, you go in a room, you’re having conversations. People are continuing to talk. It doesn’t move in any measurable way that I’ve ever figured out, anyways, and I’ve done it a long time . . . The most important point is that I know our clubs are 100% committed to the idea that they want an agreement by Dec. 1."

Clark characterized himself as a "glass-half-full guy," but he didn’t characterize the negotiations.

"Dialogue is ongoing on a number of moving pieces," he said. "Meeting in person has been a plus. We look forward to those kinds of opportunities to continue. Beyond that, we’re looking to take advantage of as many days as the schedule permits over the next five weeks or so to continue that dialogue."

A myriad of issues have been covered, though by all accounts, when it comes to the most significant ones — those relating directly to money, of course — the exchanges of proposals seen as realistically being accepted by both sides have yet to begin in earnest.

That's the reason one player agent — and he’s hardly alone — called the offseason progressing normally "the longest of long shots."

It's also the reason many in the industry are anticipating — and even planning on — a lockout if a new agreement isn’t reached by the time the current one expires.

Among the most significant and contentious issues revolve around the luxury tax, the current iteration of which started in 2003. The players, in a dream world, would like the luxury tax to disappear; they view it as a mechanism to suppress salaries. Management, in its own dream-world scenario, would like to see it lowered.

Though some speculate on a flurry of November activity once the World Series ends — free agents can begin signing with any team on the sixth day after the conclusion of the Series — major signings taking place in such a condensed timeframe are unlikely.

Teams expected to be heavily to moderately involved in the free-agent market, and the Yankees and Mets both fit that category, will be impacted, not to mention some of biggest names in the market — Carlos Correa, Freddie Freeman, Trevor Story, Max Scherzer, Corey Seager and Anthony Rizzo, just to name a handful.

There hasn’t been a work stoppage in the sport since 1994, when a labor dispute ultimately wiped out that year’s World Series and shortened the 1995 season to 144 games.

The respective parties have managed to mostly make nice publicly since then, though players have had buyer’s remorse pretty much non-stop about the soon-to-expire deal reached in 2016. The mutual mistrust and general antipathy between players and owners bubbled up — very much in public — during the 2020 negotiations that resulted in the pandemic-shortened 60-game season.

The nastiness of those talks has yet to surface. Despite the recent rhetoric from Manfred and Clark, though, history perhaps is the best guide on the matter.

Just wait.

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.