At 10:59 p.m. on Dec. 1, 2021, Major League Baseball announced that they will be going into a lockdown. A lockdown for the MLB means that no trading, training, practicing or competing will be allowed for any team until the commissioner of the league, Rob Manfred, gives the ok to do so. This is the first MLB lockdown since the 1989-1990 season. 

“So why does the MLB need to go into a lockdown?” is what many fans find themselves asking. The MLB is a $10 billion program which is constantly circulating money from player to player, team to team, staff to staff and so on. As of recently, the MLB has had too much trouble regulating the money being transferred all across the league through salaries and trade proposals in the offseason. So, until the MLB is able to get their financial situation back on track, the timeline for this lockdown is unknown. 

With this lockdown comes many unique rules, one of which is that players are quite literally locked out of their team’s facilities. Players cannot train, workout, seek rehab for an injury or hang out at their team’s facilities for any reason. Depending on each player’s situation, this could be a big deal or no different than any other offseason. For many, the few months that baseball season is not going on is a time they take away from the field and spend with family, meaning the lockdown would not really affect them. But for someone who may be dealing with an injury, they are no longer allowed to seek their trainers or team doctors and are forced to either let the injury be, or go see an ordinary doctor outside of the team’s staff and attempt to pick up where they left off. 

Because the timeline for this lockdown is unknown, players are technically allowed to play for different baseball teams across the world without penalty during this time. Although MLB players should be pretty set financially, if any are looking to pick up a few extra bucks this could be an option for them. But whenever the MLB starts the league back up again, players are only allowed to be a part of one professional league. As for the Minor Leagues, everything there will go as normal and continue to progress like nothing is new. The lockdown will only apply to the 30 professional teams across the country (plus the Toronto Blue Jays).

While the MLB is still in its usual off season during this time, fans will eagerly wait on the edge of their seats to hear whether or not their favorite teams will pick up at the usual time during the 2022 season.