Rob Manfred Knows It's Time for Him to Act

Through the mammoth windows of his new seventh-floor corner office in midtown Manhattan, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has a box seat to the world. The Radio City Music Hall marquee glows across the street, headlines crawl in formation on the electronic ticker at Fox News headquarters two blocks away and the Freedom Tower stands sentry over the world’s commercial center a few miles south. Yet Manfred can be forgiven for not looking up from the issues upon his desk, such are their weight and number.

He succeeded Bud Selig in January 2015. On the fifth anniversary of his tenure—the beginning of a second five-year term owners gave him in 2018—the Harvard-trained lawyer, 61, was dealing with two…