Exclusive: MLB, players stop drug testing during lockout

“If it’s just a simple matter of agreeing to it,” Tygart said, “you would have hoped they would have been able to get that figured out, so that when the game does restart, you don’t have questions hanging over individual players based on size, speed, batting percentage, home run numbers, whatever it may be, that people are going to call into question again.”

MLB and the union conducted 47,973 tests from 2017-21, including 7,327 during offseasons, according to a report in November from Thomas M. Martin, the independent program administrator.

Absent fear of detection, it is hard to predict whether some players will attempt to use PEDs in the period before a new collective bargaining agreement is in place along with a restoration of the drug-testing program.

“You could easily do what the cyclists were doing even in a good testing program, which was microdosing of testosterone,” Tygart said. “You can do testosterone gels or oral pills that could be out of your system and you can do more in maybe weeks.”

Baseball reached its first joint drug agreement in late 2002, a deal calling for survey testing in 2003.

Urine testing for PEDs with penalties for violations began in 2004 under a series of a repeatedly tightened drug agreements. Testing for banned amphetamines started in 2006, and in 2012 blood testing for Human Growth Hormone began, though it was suspended last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.