MLB plans COVID-19 vaccine mandate for minor-league players in 2022

Major League Baseball is finalizing a policy that would require all minor-league players to be vaccinated before the 2022 season, It’ll be the latest in a series of vaccine mandates that MLB and teams have rolled out recently to cover more and more people within the baseball world.

The commissioner’s office requires all employees to be vaccinated and some teams, starting with the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, have done the same — mandating that all non-playing full-time employees get the vaccine or receive a medical or religious exemption. Several executives like Nationals VP Bob Boone resigned over the requirement, while other employees who refused were fired or quit.

The league has required all "managers, coaches, athletic trainers and other non-playing personnel" to be vaccinated in order to have field and restricted area access during the postseason, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.

Elsewhere, MLB informed prospects heading to the Arizona Fall League in September that they must be vaccinated in order to partake, per Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic. Piecoro added that "a high-ranking executive said that of the seven players in his organization who were set to participate, one agreed to get vaccinated in order to play."

It's unclear if MLB plans to push a vaccination mandate at the big-league level as part of this winter's Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations with the MLB Players Association. Most minor-league players are not part of the MLBPA or any other union, meaning they have minimal input on matters like this. MLB players, conversely, have the union to fight for and protect against their rights.

One individual who seems in favor of vaccination mandates in MLB clubhouses is Chicago Cubs president Jed Hoyer. "I'd love nothing more than to walk into a fully vaccinated clubhouse every day and get rid of those concerns," he said on Thursday to reporters, including Patrick Mooney of The Athletic.

A vaccination mandate would be doing Hoyer a favor. The Cubs were one of seven teams who failed to surpass the 85 percent threshold among "tier 1 personnel" that would've allowed for less stringent COVID-19 guidelines. The Cubs did, however, weather multiple outbreaks during the season, including in the final days.

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