ATLANTA — Now batting for Team USA at the 2028 Olympics: Aaron Judge?

While the Yankees’ captain already has signed on to lead his country’s WBC squad next March, there is a growing possibility that major-leaguers will compete in Los Angeles, specifically at Dodger Stadium, when baseball returns as an Olympic event for the first time since 2020 in Tokyo.

Commissioner Rob Manfred acknowledged Tuesday that there would be logistical issues to work out, as the Olympics have scheduled the baseball tournament to run from July 15-20, just slightly later and longer than a typical All-Star break, and MLB still wants to hold its own Midsummer Classic festivities as well. Part of those arrangements would include hosting the All-Star Game at the Giants’ Oracle Park, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Tuesday, before heading south to L.A. for the Olympics.

Despite the unprecedented heavy lifting from a schedule perspective, Manfred also understands the importance of such high-profile international exposure for his sport and certainly sounds willing to do what’s necessary to make it happen.

“It’s doable, yeah, it’s possible you could play,” Manfred said during his annual midseason meeting with the Baseball Writers' Association of America. “Let me define possible, OK. They put out a schedule, they tell you it’s not going to move. We’ll see whether there’s any movement on that. It is possible to play the All-Star Game in its normal spot, have a single break that would be longer obviously, but still play 162 games without bleeding into the middle of November.

“That is possible, OK. It would require significant accommodations, but it’s possible.”

Manfred also touched on a number of issues during the Tuesday morning session, following Tony Clark, the executive director of the Players Association, who also spoke at the BBWAA meeting. Near the top of the list, as usual, was the collective bargaining agreement, which expires in December 2026, along with more gambling investigations and the Automated Ball-Strike challenge system (ABS), which was used in Tuesday night’s All-Star Game and could be implemented as soon as next season.

-- On the labor front, Manfred denied using the exact words “salary cap,” a radioactive term to the union, in any of his discussions with players or owners. But he did say that competitive balance is not only a serious concern for MLB, but the fan base as well, due to a handful of big-market teams outspending the rest of the league. Manfred repeatedly has tried to control payrolls in more restrictive fashions, settling on different variations of the luxury tax in the last CBA negotiations.

“When I talk to the players, I don't try to convince them that a salary-cap system would be a good thing,” Manfred said. “Literally what I say to them is: I identify a problem in the media business and explain to them that owners need to change to address that problem.

“I then identify a second problem that we need to work together, and that is that there are fans in a lot of our markets who feel like we have a competitive balance problem.”

The “work together” part is what typically trips up the two sides, which tend to be diametrically opposed on anything involving financial matters. The 2022 regular season was delayed due to a 99-day lockout, the sport’s first work stoppage since the 1994-95 players strike, and based on the increased saber-rattling on both sides, there is speculation the ’27 season could be in serious jeopardy.

“If we find ourselves coming to 12:01 on December 1 and they look to lock you out, well, they told us they were going to do that, so prepare accordingly,” Clark said Tuesday. “It begs the question as to whether or not we’re going to have a good-faith negotiation. That remains to be seen.”

Clark added that the union already is preparing a war chest for a potential work stoppage to cover lost wages, and as far as a salary cap goes, it’s a non-starter for the MLBPA. “A cap is not about partnership,” Clark said. “A cap is not about growing the game. A cap is about franchise values and profits . . . It doesn’t reward excellence. It undermines it from an organizational standpoint. That’s why this is not about competitive balance. This is institutionalized collusion.”

-- At least Manfred and Clark could agree on one thing: Betting on baseball is a huge existential threat to the sport, and Guardians pitcher Luis Ortiz could be the second player in 13 months to receive a lifetime ban as he’s being investigated for gambling on pitches that he had thrown earlier this season. Clark said that players are repeatedly warned about the dangers of betting on their own sport, but said complications can arise from multiple parlays that could unwittingly loop in a baseball leg. Manfred insisted that the sport is benefiting from the more stringent regulation that legal sports books provide, but believes that prop bets — or microbets, as the Ortiz behavior involved — may need further examination because of their especially problematic nature.

“There are certain types of bets that strike me as unnecessary and particularly vulnerable,” Manfred said. “Things where it’s one single act that doesn’t affect the outcome necessarily. We should continue to think about that. Do we really need that?”

-- As for the ABS system, or robot umps, Manfred sounds prepared to launch next season while Clark expressed concern over the accuracy, which reportedly has a margin for error of a half-inch.

“We haven’t even started talking about the strike zone itself — how that’s going to necessarily be measured and whether or not there are tweaks to be made there, too,” Clark said. “So there’s a lot of discussion that still needs to be had, despite the fact that it seems more inevitable.”