Baseball is trying to avoid trouble as the expiration of their collective bargaining agreement nears. The agreement will expire on Dec. 11. The two sides began meeting in March and Rob Manfred, the vice president of Labor Relations refused to go into detail, but expressed at mild optimism that a deal could be reached. "I really like the pace we're on," Manfred said. "We're in the early stages of the process. The process is well under way." It looks to be further along than in 2006 years ago, when talks didn't begin in earnest until June and an agreement was reached during the World Series. Nevertheless, Manfred warned of reading too much into the earlier discussions. "No collective bargaining agreement [negotiation] is of the same length," Manfred said. "The fact we started earlier doesn't mean we'll be done earlier. You just can't predict when we're going to be done."