MLB Network has cut ties with insider Ken Rosenthal that is believed to be the end result of acrimony that peaked in the summer of 2020 after Rosenthal criticized commissioner Rob Manfred, The Post has learned.

Rosenthal, a top news breaker, was first kept off the air for around three months, according to sources, after he wrote columns in 2020 — with the season in jeopardy due to the pandemic — analyzing Manfred’s handling of the situation for The Athletic.

There was no stated suspension at the time and it went publicly unnoticed.

Rosenthal was still paid, but was put in a months-long penalty box. He did return for the trade deadline, which was pushed to Aug. 31 that season due to COVID-19.

Major League Baseball owners have not yet decided to lock out players if there is no new labor deal after the Dec. 1 expiration of the current one, commissioner Rob Manfred said Thursday, but he highlighted the folly of not doing so in 1994 that led to a crippling strike and added that “an offseason lockout that moves the process forward is different than a labor dispute that costs games.”

“I don’t think ‘94 worked out too great for anybody,” Manfred told reporters as the quarterly owners meetings concluded. “I think we need to look at other sports. The pattern has become to control the timing of the labor dispute and try to minimize the prospect of actual disruption of the season. That’s what it’s about. It’s avoiding doing damage to the season.”

Labor strife was the main focus of owners, team presidents and league executives who met less than two weeks before the deal expires—and with little progress made toward a new one. While the league and MLB Players Association have met consistently—they had a bargaining session Wednesday, Manfred said, and are scheduled for another Friday—they remain far apart from an agreement, having made limited progress on core economic issues.

“We understand, I understand, that time is becoming an issue,” Manfred said. “That’s a challenge. We’ve had challenges with respect to making labor agreements before, and we got a pretty good track record of overcoming those challenges. I can tell you from the clubs’ perspective, we’re committed to continuing to offer proposals and suggestions in an effort to get to an agreement before December 1.”

That, fittingly, brings us back to Manfred. The only way he could lose his job is by losing money for owners. There’s a couple of paths toward such an outcome. One could be failing to maintain or even carve out new economic territory for the management side during the ongoing negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement. The players are mobilized, unified, and armed with an aggressive wish list after years of seeing their share of revenues pruned down. It’s possible they’ll come away from the table with a win, provided they win what seems like the inevitable staredown—i.e., a likely lockout by owners should no new agreement be reached by the time the current one expires on Dec. 1.

That said, Manfred has a post-Fay Vincent lack of autonomy as commissioner, and the idea that he’d force through an agreement that’s not to the liking of most owners is far-fetched in the extreme (he also has an extensive background in labor negotiations, including during his time as one of Selig’s lieutenants). You can bet anything Manfred does toward advancing an agreement will have the imprimatur of the owners upon it. Moreover, Manfred isn’t even the lead negotiator for the club side. That’s deputy commissioner Dan Halem. In that sense, there’s a possible buffer between Manfred and accountability for any losses at the conference table.

The nation’s largest Native American organization is disputing MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s reasoning on why the Atlanta Braves’ nickname and its “tomahawk chop” fan ritual should be allowed to continue.

Calling it a local issue, Manfred said Tuesday the Native American community in the region is “fully supportive of the Braves’ program, including the chop.”

“For me, that’s kind of the end of the story,’’ he added.

However, the National Congress of American Indians countered that statement on Wednesday saying, “Nothing can be further from the truth.”

Noting how MLB markets the game nationally and internationally, NCAI president Fawn Sharp said the Braves’ name, logo and the chop “are meant to depict and caricature not just one tribal community but all Native people, and that is certainly how baseball fans and Native people everywhere interpret them.”

One is Houston, the site of Tuesday night’s Game 1, where Manfred is seen as a villain over his handling of the sign-stealing scandal that tarnished the Astros’ title in 2017 and stained their players’ legacies. Many fans here believe Manfred scapegoated the Astros for committing a crime that was widespread at the time and unfairly transformed them into the most hated franchise in professional sports.

The other is Atlanta, where Manfred sparked a political firestorm by pulling the All-Star Game in response to Georgia’s new voting law. The move, which the Braves publicly opposed, enraged some state officials and alienated a portion of fans, who are now celebrating even more important games coming to town.

However it shakes out, it is a hellish proposition for Manfred. Sports commissioners frequently hear boos. (Just ask Roger Goodell how much he enjoys showing his face in New England.) But the vitriol Manfred will face at the end of this World Series will be particularly vicious, and coming from all directions—whatever he does now.

Manfred is pinned between liberal and conservative American politics in part because MLB began to respond to calls to act on social issues last year. It left the commissioner simultaneously under pressure to take those stances to their logical conclusion, at the same time he is still facing resentment from people aggrieved at the positions.