This time a year ago, I was exasperated with Luis Rojas. From platooning Brandon Nimmo on the basis of about a dozen ABs, using Amed Rosario and his lifetime .305 OBP in the leadoff spot and using relievers four times in five days – among other things – he was making mistakes that no manager should make. When new ownership came in, my hope was that a new manager would, too.
Of course, new ownership kept Rojas. And the beginning of the season, it seemed like most of the gaffes from the previous year were gone. Sure, there were hooks that came too early for SP but at least those could be explained by being cautious due to the shortened season a year ago.
However, it seems like as the year has gone on that there are multiple in-game decisions that leave you baffled. It would be one thing if it was a game here and a game there. But it seems to happen three times a week. Current conventional wisdom seems to be that in-game managerial moves are not as important as fans think. GMs value other things in a manager. That perception seems to be common around the league. But just because a perception exists – it doesn’t make it right.
Where do you stand on Luis Rojas
- Replace him - Mets need someone better in the dugout (96%, 25 Votes)
- Keep him - his faults are exaggerated (4%, 1 Votes)
Total Voters: 26
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I’ve generally defended Rojas against a lot of the second guessing. I’ve argued that most decisions are not cut and dry and that it’s very easy to say after the fact that a different decision was the right one. In the past month or so though, Rojas has made some really bad ones, and his post game explanations have not been good. Time to go.
With that said, I am one of those that is of the opinion that managerial moves are overrated and don’t have nearly the impact on games that most thing. The Mets issue this year (as TJ has pointed out numerous times) is that their hitting has sucked. Their numbers with RISP have been even worse. Offense is why they are not a playoff team this year.
If the Mets were losing or winning games by larger margins, maybe I’d say it wasn’t that important to change managers. But they are involved on more one-run games than anyone. And they need different leadership, starting with a president of baseball operations, a general manager, and a manager.
Player performances are not isolated. Players go up and down, but the manager decides when and where to play them. Rojas failed in so many ways this season, we will never know what certain players might have done under different leadership. Does JD Davis have such a lost year? Does Dom Smith find a way out of his power drought and overall hitting woes? Does Jeff McNeil remain in a stubborn groove of not squaring up balls early in the count, flailing on breaking balls late in the count? Does Conforto find the key piece to find his game?
Players’ performances are not interdependent… they need to be put in advantageous positions… Rojas does close to nothing on instinct to get a player right. He’s an inert manager.
I felt it was appropriate to retain Rojas for 2021 given the circumstances of his hire and the 2020 COVID season, and that most opinions of him stated that he was professional, thorough, and certainly earned his shot at a big league manager position.
His in game performance of late, for me, has been very disappointing and a hinderance to success, and I come from the position that these things go back and forth and usually cause overreaction when they don’t pan out. And, I also come from the position that the players decide the outcome 99% of the time, so they get the glory or blame for the result. Maybe Rojas overall has cost them 2-3 games…they’d still be a huge disappointment despite the pitching injuries.
Managerial changes are not always the fault of the manager. I loathe calling for people’s jobs, but the reality is, barring a miraculous turnaround, the result this year requires some changes. Given that a new Head of Baseball Ops is job 1 for the owner, there will almost certainly be a new manager in 2022, and I couldn’t rationally argue against that.
There will never be an objective way to value a manager, but what annoys me are the people who laud a manager when a team overperforms, like the first half Mets, the manager gets praise for winning with suboptimal conditions, but when a team doesn’t play well, all of a sudden it’s the players fault and the manager has nothing to do with it.
You can’t have it both ways.
Also, personally i couldn’t care less about the PR/media aspect of the job as none of that affects on-field performance and is just filler material for articles/news segments.
Rojas has made some questionable decisions and his answers to those decisions were faultly and not plausible. He pulled starters early which stressed the bullpen. He had a pre-game play plan that he didn’t divate from even when the circumstances in front of him begged a change. Sometimes he ignored the stats when he wrote out the line up and when selecting a pinch hitter or selecting a reliever. The Mets need someone better in the dugout.
Fire him. I personally dont think many of the things we hate to see are solely or even a majority of input from him. I bet there is a fixed schedule for removing pitchers, a plan for relievers and order and length all based on analytics.
No third time through’s for most.
only 1 IP for most relievers
line up etc.
So sure, get him out, I dont care, but if you think someone else is gonna be hired and “go rogue” think again. The person you need to get rid of is Alderson and much of the worthless FO driving most of the on-field decisions.
Sometimes change is good. A new GM, a new manager, a couple of new hitters and we’ll be excited fora new season.