The Marlins had to bring in 16 replacement players for their coronavirus outbreak, and their manager has never even met some of them
- The Miami Marlins had to bring in 16 new players after their COVID-19 outbreak infected 18 players.
- Marlins manager Don Mattingly said he has "never met" some of the players, who have been acquired via trade, free agency, waiver wire, and through minor league call-ups.
- The Marlins are set to play on Tuesday after missing seven games with their outbreak.
The Miami Marlins have had to rebuild their roster on the fly after the team's outbreak of COVID-19 infected 18 players.
According to The Wall Street Journal's Jared Diamond, the Marlins have brought in 16 new players through trades, the waiver wire, free agency, the minor leagues, and from the injured list. USA Today's Bob Nightengale reported the Marlins have brought in 15 new players. Insider could not determine the exact number.
Each MLB team has an "alternate training site" where players on the 60-man player pool but not on the 30-man roster stay prepared for the season, in case of a COVID-19 outbreak.
On Monday, Marlins manager Don Mattingly said he barely knows some of the new players.
"Some of the guys I've never met," Mattingly told reporters, according to Diamond.
The new additions are a hodgepodge group. According to Diamond, six of the call-ups from the training site in Jupiter, Florida, have not played for the Marlins before. Three of them have not yet played in the major leagues. One of the call-ups is Eddy Alvarez, a 30-year-old infielder who competed in short-track speedskating for the U.S. at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Alvarez won a silver medal at the games.
On Monday, Marlins owner Derek Jeter spoke to media through a video conference and said that adjusting to so many new players at once would be a unique challenge.
"Not only do you welcome new teammates and try to develop a bond, you have to do it socially distanced, you have to do it where you can't really hang out and get to know guys as you normally would," Jeter said. "That's a good question. It is difficult. You spend a lot of time together, but now you're spending a lot of time together, and circumstances have completely changed."
The Philadelphia Phillies had eight games postponed after playing the Marlins the weekend of Miami's coronavirus outbreak. However, the Phillies did not have any players test positive.
The St. Louis Cardinals are the latest team to experience an outbreak, with 13 total members of the team — six players, seven staff members — testing positive. They, too, have had seven games postponed.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred had said he would consider canceling the season or suspending it if a team were to lose so many players and games that it put them at a competitive disadvantage.
The Marlins have had no new positive cases for three days and will play on Tuesday.
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