Major League Baseball is in a lockout. This is common knowledge. Pretty much everyone who follows baseball knows that this means teams can’t sign free agents or make trades with other teams, and to be fair that is the biggest visible consequence of the lockout. Unfortunately, the lockout is more than that.
Of less common knowledge is that the league is not required to be in a lockout without a Collective Bargaining Agreement—more commonly referred to as a CBA—in place. The players had nothing to do with the lockout, because the owners implemented it unanimously.