Spring training: No Harper or Machado (yet), but Rob Manfred says pitch clock will be there

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred refuses to believe his game is broken merely because a gaggle of the sport's greatest stars remain unemployed as spring training camps kick into overdrive.

After all, he represents the game’s owners, who for the first time in decades are succeeding greatly at keeping player costs flat, even as players chafe, agents fume and some fans wonder why their team has no interest in Bryce Harper, Manny Machado or any number of available luminaries.

Yet, even the man who in November received a contract extension from his 30 bosses through 2024 has his limits.

“I hate the negativity that surrounds the coverage of the game right now,” Manfred said Sunday at a media event on the eve of many full squads reporting for camps. “Probably the best antidote for that is to get out there and start playing the game. I think once we get out and start playing the game, the glow of positivity will reemerge.”

But fans looking for the familiar may be further unsettled once Grapefruit and Cactus league games get underway next week.

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Manfred announced that a 20-second pitch clock will be ready to roll for spring training games, as MLB “will get ready for the possibility of seeing a pitch clock by opening day," he said. “The only prudent course for us is to be in a position to proceed — hopefully under our collectively bargained conditions.”

Indeed, Manfred hopes to hammer out an agreement with MLB Players’ Association executive director Tony Clark on a pitch clock, rather than unilaterally implement it, as is his right per the CBA.

But the clock is just one line item in a brewing labor showdown that began with last winter’s freezeout of veteran players and continued this offseason as Harper and Machado — both in their prime, at 26, and both still MVP-caliber talents — remain available.

The chorus of elite players ripping a mode of compensation that has flattened their pay even as industry revenues top $10 billion has been loud all winter, first on social media and then as camps opened last week.

Manfred did not waste his chance at the bully pulpit to respond.

In direct and veiled statements, Manfred shifted the blame of unmet expectations on super agent Scott Boras, whose dream of a $400 million deal for Harper will almost certainly go unfilled.

And while saying his relationship with Clark remained strong, he also chided the MLBPA chief for his February 2018 grievance that claimed the Rays, Marlins, A’s and Pirates were not properly pouring revenue-sharing receipts into major league payroll.

Only the Marlins finished with a losing record in that bunch while the A’s made the playoffs with 97 wins.

“The assertion that teams aren’t trying started last spring training with Tony Clark singling out four teams,” Manfred said. “He did very poorly with those four teams. This narrative that our teams are not trying is just not supported by the facts. Every single team wants to win.

“It may look a little different to outsiders — the way people think about the game, the way a winning team is put together. That doesn’t mean teams are not trying.”

And he seemed particularly flummoxed at the threat of a player strike in 2021 floated by St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright.

“There is no personal acrimony between me and Tony Clark,” Manfred said. “I do believe it’s unfortunate, and represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how to conduct good labor relations, to have people running around three years before an agreement expires, that there’s going to be a strike.

“I have a degree in labor relations. I’ve never heard that tactic.”

Indeed, most players have taken a far more sober approach to the endless winter. That doesn’t mean the resistance isn’t there.

“You look at overall revenue versus what the players are getting paid, it’s not correlated anymore,” Houston Astros ace Justin Verlander told USA TODAY Sports on Sunday. “The value is decreased on players when it shouldn’t be; revenues are going up.

“I’ve got a great life and appreciate all that’s come my way. I’ve worked very hard for it. I get to play a sport for a job and make a lot of money doing it. But as is with any business, you want it to be fair. If it’s not, that’s why we have a union, that’s why we organize, that’s why we lean on each other to make it right.”

Baseball has three more seasons to get it right. Until then, the bright skies Manfred hopes for may be harder to find.

Follow USA TODAY Sports' Gabe Lacques on Twitter @GabeLacques.