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“No matter the time of year, we try to function in a way that we’re prepared to move quickly when an opportunity presents itself,” Hahn said Dec. 1, hours before the lockout began. “We have an idea, whether it’s on the trade or free-agent front, what we feel is appropriate from a cost standpoint, and when those opportunities arise, we’re prepared to move. If it happens to be that things are on pause for a little bit, when we come back, we’ll be ready to go.”

“Any rule that we have, we’ve talked about changing: Change the bats, change the balls, change the bases, change the geometry of the field, change the number of players on the field, change the batting order, change the number of innings, the number of balls and strikes,” Sword said. “We talked about regulating the height of grass on the infield to speed up ground balls and create more hits. We’ve never talked about this in any serious way, but we talked about allowing fans to throw home-run balls back and keep them in play. That’s one that I don’t even like.”

Very, for the most part. Players have been gathering at fields and facilities across the country to stay sharp when camps didn’t open as planned in mid-February. Aaron Judge and several New York Yankees teammates have been preparing at the University of South Florida, Vanderbilt coach Tim Corbin has invited alumni and their pals to use the school’s facilities in Nashville, Tenn., and the union opened a facility in Mesa, Ariz., for players.