MLB teams looking to get into the spirit of the season with their players need to do so before Dec. 2, otherwise, the league is telling teams they should avoid sending holiday cards once the lockout begins. 

While the playoffs are in full swing, the likely lockout has cast a cloud over the MLB postseason, with Major League Baseball executive Dan Halem issuing a 34-page memo to owners and high-level team execs explaining how they should act during a labor stoppage. 

And, according to the memo obtained by The Athletic, holiday cards are a no-no. 

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred speaks to members of the media following an owners’ meeting, Thursday, June 15, 2023, at MLB headquarters in New York. AP

“Sending Players holiday cards or gifts would not be permissible during a Lockout,” Halem wrote in the memo. “Clubs could send holiday cards or gifts to players prior to Dec. 2.”

Among the items Halem outlined in the memo was how MLB’s digital arm would create alternate club websites that scrub any trace of the players’ likeness, though teams will still be able to sell merch with players’ names and images on them. 

It also says that team staffers can attend players’ weddings that they have been invited to, but they cannot discuss business and if a club official runs into a player in public, they “should be cordial.” 

The MLB collective bargaining agreement expires on Dec. 1 at 11:59 p.m. 

Halem did write in the memo that the league’s “commitment has been and remains to exhaust every realistic option to achieve our goal of reaching an agreement with the Players Association.”

On Thursday, MLB made several proposals to the MLB Players Association, which included shortening the regular season to 154 games, extending the division series from best-of-five to best-of-seven and allowing the higher-seeded teams in the wild-card and divisional rounds to select their opponent. 

However, all of that would be contingent on the players agreeing to a salary cap. 

The MLBPA called the proposed changes “anti-player” as the league “once again made clear that all of its proposals are contingent on players’ agreement to a salary cap, a system that guts player rights and compensation, as well as its other anti-player proposals.”

An MLBPA statement added: “Players will weigh in on these proposals and we will respond at the bargaining table.”