Outside The Confines: Closed indefinitely

There was a whole ton of news coming out over the past two days. Don’t get used to it. I have a feeling this column is going to be pretty sparse for the next few months after this one.

I’m also going to mention any mlb.com content that I’m linking to. There isn’t much of it because they’re not producing much, but in case you’re boycotting the site during the lockout, I don’t want to make you click on a link by accident.

• The owners locked out the players as no agreement was reached by the time the last collective bargaining agreement expired. Even Drellich, who has been on top of this all along, has a summary of where we are and what the issues are at the moment. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Jesse Rogers has everything you need to know about the lockout.
• Or maybe you’d rather read Dayn Perry telling you everything you need to know about the lockout.
• Then there’s Michael Baumann, who’s here to answer all your questions about the MLB lockout.
• Mike Axisa has the dos and don’ts of a lockout. It’s mostly don’ts.
• J.J. Cooper answers the question “What happens to the minor leagues during a lockout?” Mostly, nothing, although Triple-A may be affected as no one on the 40-man roster will be allowed on minor league rosters.
• Kyle Glaser has one more bit of information. The major league Rule 5 draft, scheduled for December 9, has been postponed indefinitely. The minor league portion will take place as scheduled.
• In case you were wondering, Liz Roscher has a list of what happened in every work stoppage in a major North American sport since 1994.
• Jeff Passan outlines how far apart the owners and the players are in bargaining talks.
• Travis Sawchick explains why the players have a lot to complain about about the current distribution of wealth in the game.
• If the owners were hoping the players would quickly break, they may be in for a disappointment. Bob Nightengale highlights the many ways the players demonstrated their solidarity on the first day of the lockout.
• You probably noticed this, but all images, video and news stories about locked out players disappeared from mlb.com. They explain why. (mlb.com content, obviously)
• That led to the first bit of solidarity on the part of the players, many of whom changed their avatar on social media to a generic head.
• Peter Gammons makes the point that it’s the young players who will be hurt most by this lockout. (The Athletic sub. req.) He also manages to make a lot of points about Wade Boggs and Don Mattingly, seemingly proving that you can take a sportswriter out of the eighties, but you can’t take the eighties out of the sportswriter.
• This bit of news kind of got lost in all the other news, and I’m afraid that might happen here as well. MLB used two different balls in 2021 with different levels of “liveliness” and they weren’t very open about it. MLB says they told the players union, but the players themselves said that they had no idea.
• The minor leaguers aren’t part of the union and aren’t part of the bargaining talks. But Advocates for Minor Leaguers announced that they have formed a committee to fight for the working conditions of minor leaguers. Players on the committee will be anonymous so that their teams can’t retaliate against them.
• Zach Crizer looks at how the coming lockout produced a frenzy of deals and drama in the final hours. Crizer thinks it was great for the sport, but sadly not easily replicated.
• J.J. Cooper, however, has some ideas to turn every offseason into a signing frenzy like we got this week. He wants a three-week period when teams could sign big free agents.
• Dayn Perry has the numbers behind the free-agent frenzy before the lockout. A lot of money was spent.
• The Cubs signing Marcus Stroman was not the only MLB deal that got done before the lockout started. The Dodgers brought back super-utility player Chris Taylor on a four-year, $60 million deal.
• Ben Clemens analyzes why the Dodgers wanted to bring Taylor back.
• The Red Sox traded outfielder Hunter Renfroe to the Brewers in exchange for Jackie Bradley Jr. and some prospects.
• The Padres tried to sign pitcher Nick Martinez to a four-year, $20 million deal, but they couldn’t get the details done before the lockout. However, they could revisit this after the lockout. Martinez pitched for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks and Team USA in the Olympics last summer.
• Luke Hooper breaks down the now non-existent free agent market for catchers and what the Pirates can expect from Roberto Pérez and the Cubs from Yan Gomes.
• Zach Kram takes note of the surprising trend of the free agent market being driven by non-playoff teams and tries to explain it.
• Andy McCullough lists the top free agents still on the market and ready to sign when the lockout ends. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Buster Olney talks to people who think the market is going to get really ugly for mid-tier free agents when this work stoppage ends. (ESPN+ sub. req.)
• Sad news as former Cy Young Award winner and White Sox pitcher LaMarr Hoyt died at the age of 66. His family said he died of cancer. Our condolences go to his family and friends.
• Andrew Simon has a list of players who had a Hall-of-Fame caliber career derailed by injuries. (mlb.com article)
• And finally, no one can lock out Ichiro Suzuki. A group of high school players wrote Ichiro and asked him to come out to their practices as a guest instructor. Nearly a year later, Ichiro showed up and proceeded to hit a bunch of home runs in batting practice. (mlb.com article—but here’s one that isn’t.) Ichiro also gave the players instruction on how to improve their game. He plans on visiting at least two more high schools in Japan this year.

And let tomorrow be a better day than today. End the lockout.