One problem with locking out the players, Major League Baseball may soon learn, is that when you tell players to stay away from you, it’s hard to know what they’re doing.

On Feb. 7, MLB announced that it had halted its drug testing program for the first time in nearly 20 years, raising questions about whether players will use this period of indefinite freedom to hit the juice again. According to a doctor who has worked with Major League players in the past, the floodgates have already busted open. He told the Daily News that several active players have asked him this winter how to use steroids as safely as possible now that it’s not technically against the rules.

“In the last month, two months after the lockout, we’ve had half a dozen MLB players consulting me,” said Dr. Thomas O’Connor, author of the book “America on Steroids.”

In his previous work with ballplayers, O’Connor said, “Yankees came to me, Boston guys, guys from LA.” Now that the lockout is here and league-mandated testing is not, they’re making some calls again.

“Last week I (talked with) another MLB guy,” O’Connor revealed. “They’re asking.”

O’Connor, a primary care physician, is the founder of health clinics in Connecticut and Florida that offer personalized medical services for men on natural or synthetic steroid hormones. He says his clients have included “hundreds” of professional athletes, Olympians, powerlifters and bodybuilders. O’Connor says he doesn’t provide the banned drugs; he helps athletes use them safely. Knowing the ethical gray area that comes with helping athletes do steroids, O’Connor said, “They acknowledge that and I tell them ‘I’m a physician, not a lawyer.’ Then I say ‘OK, I have to talk to you about harm reduction.’”

MLB players don’t only come to him for consultations on how to safely do steroids, they also want to know how to not get caught.

“Now that there’s no testing at all, they’re running amok,” he said.

Rick Collins, the attorney who represented chemist Patrick Arnold, inventor of the undetectable drug colloquially known as “the clear” at the famed BALCO steroid lab, has seen this song and dance before. He says that the testing systems of past and present will never be perfect, and with the advancements that have been made since the BALCO days, there’s now an “evolving cornucopia” of designer drugs that will be nearly impossible to trace.

“There’s a cat and mouse game that’s inherent in anti-doping efforts,” Collins explained. “The mice know what the cats are looking for, and sometimes the mice are a step ahead of the cats.”

Until a new collective bargaining agreement is signed, which would reinstitute a joint drug agreement and make them subject to testing again, the players find themselves in a lawless land similar to the one that created the steroid era.

“Our legal authority to conduct drug tests expired with the expired agreement,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said at recent owner’s meetings. “It’s a topic of concern.”

There is a career-altering — and for non-superstar players, potentially career-ending — amount of risk in trying to get some steroid cycles in before testing resumes, though.

“It ends up being a lot of fringe players,” said Dr. Lauren Borowski, a primary care sports medicine specialist at NYU Langone Health. “They feel like they either need to be doing better to keep their position or to get up to that next level. It’s not always the Barry Bonds or the Mark McGwire. It’s usually the people that are trying to stay in the game and stay relevant.”

According to O’Connor, players are now seeking out drugs that can get out of their system more quickly, with testosterone propionate (prope) the hottest commodity. Long-acting steroids like Deca-Durabolin — the one Jason Giambi told a federal grand jury he was injecting during his heyday — are a thing of the past because testing has caught up to them.

“These guys have contacted me, but they already know about this stuff,” O’Connor said. “It’s freaky how much they know. But at any moment, they could be drug tested within a week. If MLB says, ‘Boom, (lockout is) over, piss in this cup’, I mean, that guy’s f--ked.”

That might not be entirely true. Major League Baseball could institute an instant-penalty system as part of the new CBA, but there’s also nothing stopping them and the players from coming to an agreement on a new, safer system.

The new CBA will almost assuredly include detailed drug bylaws, but the relative lack of precedence for restarting a dormant test system may allow for some leeway, especially when it comes to the potential for immediate urine testing whenever the season begins. That is something that many players are probably fearing.

Drastically stopping steroid usage has proven to carry horrifying side effects. Forcing players to quit at the drop of a CBA is inviting some scary health risks, which O’Connor has seen before.

“They’re going to feel like garbage,” O’Connor said. “There’s going to be a period of time, guaranteed, where their testosterone levels go very low. When you’re off everything you’re confused, depressed, no sex, no focus, and they’re suicidal. That’s what they come to me with, especially MLB guys.”

It’s not just Dr. O’Connor connecting the dots between steroid withdrawal and self-harm. A 1999 study published in Annals of Clinical Psychiatry notes that depressive symptoms are associated with anabolic androgenic steroid withdrawal. The negative effects of rushing off a doping cycle are well-documented. Several studies and media reports have linked steroid withdrawal to depression and suicides among athletes.

Borowski knows the potential for internal anguish in recovering steroid users as well.

“Testosterone and steroids can affect mood and quality of life,” Borowski said. “Depression could be an issue. There’s a lot of emotional and psychological issues that can come with coming off of (steroids) that they have to be aware of.”

What MLB has accidentally done is give their players an incentive to take performance-enhancing drugs (although minor leaguers are still being tested), knowing that eventually they’ll police them again and possibly send some of those players into a dangerous spiral. That could lead to a season of players looking like Rue from “Euphoria,” but also a world of loopholes and workarounds.

As O’Connor mentioned, the players who have already dipped a toe in these waters are doing so not only with a head full of research, but also the type of supreme confidence intrinsic to professional athletes. They know that what they are doing will be against the rules when the lockout is over, they simply do not care.

“Even if there is testing, is it even working?” Collins asked. “Some athletes will microdose anabolic steroids in order to achieve improved and more efficient recovery. By controlling the doses and the timing and choosing substances that have very limited detection spans, they can hedge their bets to some degree.”

Another risk comes into play here. Possession of anabolic steroids without a prescription is illegal under federal law. Collins notes that it’s “pretty unlikely” that a modern athlete would be caught for that, though.

Under the previous drug policy, players could also receive a therapeutic use exemption for prescription medication. As O’Connor knows firsthand from writing them, players are not shy about trying to get those.

“This is a medical issue,” O’Connor said. “They go, ‘I have to play in Cleveland tomorrow and I feel like s--t.’ Then we give them different fertility drugs, all evidence-based from Harvard and all these other doctors. It stimulates your own natural testosterone. You can get busted, because the testosterone to epitestosterone ratio is going to show a positive. But if you time it just right, and your gamble pays off, you can get through a test.”

Getting through the test is one thing. Sustaining a high level of play while going through steroid withdrawal is another entirely. This may spawn a series of phantom injuries that are really players lying about their condition. While obviously not every case of nebulous soreness is code for steroid-induced psychosis, some of them are, according to O’Connor.

“Absolutely. That’s what they’re doing,” he said. “They’re depressed and they can’t perform. They’ve told me that they’ve done that because they’re just panicking. ‘Ooh, my hamstring is pulled. I can’t.’ That’s something that’s been documented.”

Borowski has worked with steroid users as well, mostly on the recreational level with people who know they will never be tested. In her experience, the eye test is still a strong indicator of usage, but there are a few specific injuries that set off alarm bells as well, though they’re never a surefire sign.

“If I see a guy in their 20s, 30s, 40s who has triceps tendonitis, it makes me think they’re using steroids,” Borowski mentioned. “Steroids have an association with triceps overuse, partial tears and tendon rupture. But it’s mostly a look thing that makes you question someone initially.”

The lockout and its ensuing effects on drug testing stand the possibility of creating another league-driven narrative that the players are the villains. The owners have already tried their damnedest to blame the lockout on the players, and now they may have accidentally created the second steroid wave. O’Connor doesn’t think we’ll see a huge increase in PED suspensions, though.

“They drink tons of water, they train hard, then if they don’t have a Whizzinator, they’re just going to wing it. A lot of them will pass.”

Some players could also get a cycle in, stop, and be good to go by Opening Day, perhaps with some residual effects still helping them.

“They could be using something right now and not have it detected once they actually get up and running,” Borowski told The News. “You really start to see changes in lean body mass and fat mass around the three-to-four month mark. That could potentially last into the season, for sure. After one to two weeks, typically it’s undetectable in testing. So, people could certainly be using right now. I think that’s a real possibility.”

In talking to the experts, one thing becomes clear. There will always be MLB players taking steroids, even when they’re being tested for them. Right now, because the lockout allowed them to, more players are showing interest or have already jumped on the wagon. Regardless of whether they continue using into the spring and summer, or if they’ll be flung into harmful mental spaces once they come off, this has the ingredients to be yet another huge blunder in Manfred’s unconscionably bad tenure as commissioner.