Minors complex shut down as COVID-19 precaution

The Miami Marlins’ minorleague complex in Jupiter is being shut down through the weekend as a precaution after “a few guys” tested positive for COVID-19, a team spokesperson confirmed to the Miami Herald on Saturday morning.

At least five players and staff members tested positive, a source told the Miami Herald. The team is following protocols with contact tracing and isolation.

The pause is not expected to impact the start of the minorleague season for any of the club’s four full-season affiliates — the Triple A Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp, Double A Pensacola Blue Wahoos, Class A Advanced Beloit Snappers and Class A Jupiter Hammerheads. The minor-league season for all four levels begins on May 4.

The Marlins have more than

120 minor-league players at their complex at Jupiter’s Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium. A group about 30 players, primarily higher-ranked prospects and veterans on minor-league deals, have been working out in Jacksonville as part of the team’s alternate training site. That site has had no issues with

COVID-19 testing.

Until the minor-league season begins, MLB teams can only call up players who are working out at the alternate training site to the active roster or have them travel with the team as part of the taxi squad.

Local radio host Andy Slater was first to report the shutdown.

The timing of the positive tests comes toward the end of a shortened minor-league camp, which couldn’t start until after big-league spring training finished because of

COVID-19 protocol restrictions. The camp is the first hands-on interaction for many prospects with members of the club’s minorleague coaching staff and instructors in more than a year.

The 2020 minor-league baseball season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Players who were not part of the 60-person roster pool in 2020 were not able to work out at team facilities during the season.

A group of 45 players took part in a month-long instructional league camp in October. About 20 prospects inside the organization who are not part of the 40-man roster, many of whom took part in that instructional league camp, took part in big-league spring training as non-roster invitees.

Incentive for vaccination: MLB told teams in late March that health and safety protocols and restrictions will be loosened for teams if 85 percent or more of their Tier 1 individuals (players and coaches) become fully vaccinated from COVID-19, which means they are two weeks removed from either the second dose of the Moderna or Pfizer shot or from the one-dose Johnson & Johnson shot, the latter of which had its national pause lifted by the Food and Drug Administration on Friday. About 10 MLB teams have reportedly hit the 85-percent threshold.

The Marlins have not hit that mark yet, but general manager Kim Ng said Wednesday the team is “working towards it” and that she is “fairly confident that in the end, we will get there.”

“I do think it’s important for team chemistry,” Ng said, “to the extent that we can socialize in a bit of a different way than we have been doing . ... I hope we get there.”

The Marlins waited until April 5, when the state of Florida expanded vaccine eligibility to all adults, to have players on the active roster receive their first dose. That lines them up to receive their second dose within the next week.