The 3 most surprising things we have learned from the MLB lockout

The MLB lockout is upon us and in the first few hours of it, there are few things that you would not have expected to happen.

One of the things you may not know about the lockout is that players and club officials cannot be in contact with each other. Players cannot use MLB facilities (including spring training facilities) and injured players cannot receive rehab or treatment from club trainers. But we covered that in this FAQ guide to the lockout and the history of labor stoppage in baseball so that won’t be included in this.

Instead, there are three other things that we have learned since the lockout was put in place at 12:01 AM E.T. on Thursday.

We have learned what the MLBPA and MLB were hung up on

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred released a statement after the lockout was put in place and he revealed some of what was put on the table and what the hangups were.

Manfred claimed that:

• That owners “offered to establish a minimum payroll for all clubs to meet for the first time in baseball history”
• Owners had a plan that would “allow the majority of players to reach free agency earlier through an age-based system that would eliminate any claims of service time manipulation”
• Owners offered a plan that would “increase compensation for all young players, including increases in the minimum salary.”

Manfred also claimed that “[w]hen negotiations lacked momentum,” the owners tried to create momentum by accepting MLBPA’s proposals for:

• A universal Designated Hitter
• The creation of a new draft system using a lottery similar to other leagues
• An increase in the Competitive Balance Tax threshold that would impact fewer teams

Want to see an MLB player’s picture on an MLB site? Sorry!

MLB.com did not even exist the last time MLB and the MLBPA had a work stoppage. In fact, Internet Explorer hadn’t even been invented yet, let alone Google Chrome, Safari, etc., which were created years or a decade or more later.

As a result, you may not have known this. MLB.com and their individual team sites cannot use a player’s likeness during the CBA because MLB.com … is the website home of MLB, not the players.

The players are still listed but no pictures are allowed because they don’t an agreement with the MLBPA.

For those of you that are old enough to remember the ramifications of the 1994-95 MLB strike, there were going to be “replacement players” before the strike was settled in court. Those replacement players were never allowed to be part of the MLBPA if they ever reached the majors themselves after the strike.

So, if you played video games in the late 1990s or early 2000s, those replacement players are not in the games because you had to be a member of the MLBPA. The most notable names that fell into this category are:

• Former first baseman/outfielder and current MLB Network personality Kevin Millar (e.g. renamed Anthony Friese in MVP Baseball 2005)
• Pitcher Brendan Donnelly
• The late pitcher Cory Lidle
• Pitcher Kerry Lightenberg
• Pitcher Ron Mahay
• Infielder Frank Menechino (currently the White Sox hitting coach)
• Infielder and current Red Sox broadcaster Lou Merloni
• Catcher Damian Miller
• First baseman Pete Rose Jr.
• Outfielder Shane Spencer
• Pitcher Jamie Walker

Those players, often, could not have merchandise in their names either and, in the case of some (Millar, Donnelly, Spencer, Miller, etc.), if they won a World Series, they could not be included in World Series commemorative merchandise.