Luis Rojas and learning on Steve Cohen’s dime

Back in November, at the introductory press conference for Steve Cohen, Sandy Alderson essentially said that Luis Rojas was going to return in 2021. Yesterday, Alderson essentially said the opposite. My opinion was that Rojas should have been let go prior to this season. But, at the beginning of the 2021 campaign, Rojas seemed like an improved man in the dugout. But as the season wore on, Rojas’ performance – much like the Mets’ themselves – seemed to deteriorate.

Of course, it’s an open question about how much authority Rojas actually has. There’s no debate that the front office has more influence over things that have traditionally been in the realm of managerial moves than they did back when, say, Bobby Valentine was managing, much less then when Gil Hodges was calling the shots.

But you’re kidding yourself if you think you know exactly how much influence the front office has here.

In a piece this morning for The Athletic, Tim Britton had several quotes from Rojas. This particular quote leads one to think that Rojas had more control over moves than many here seem to believe.

Does Rojas look back at August and wonder what he could or should have done differently?

“There’s always things you learn from and you go, ‘In a situation like this moving forward, I could have done this,’” he said.

Snip

“There are some things where I can look back and I can say, ‘Maybe we could have tried this.’ That’s why every day you’ve got to feel that you’re better. Even though some decision you made didn’t work, you can learn from that. You’ve got to be humble enough to embrace that. I can think of a few things we probably could have approached a little different, just looking into the future for my personal standpoint. Definitely. There’s always that.”

It’s probably not realistic to imagine that Rojas would have thrown the front office under the bus with this question. He could have said something like, “I did the best I could with the players available and the front office directives.” But even if he wasn’t going to be that blunt, you can read a little between the lines. Rojas kept using the personal pronoun, “I,” when he very easily could have said, “we,” more than he did. Maybe this is nothing more than Rojas being a company man and taking one for the team. Or maybe he was actually the one completely responsible for the bonehead decisions we talked about regularly the past two months.

No team is going to let a high-functioning alcoholic like Billy Martin have unchecked power as a manager ever again. This is a good thing. But there are things that the suits in the front office should absolutely be in charge of and there are things for which the guy in the dugout wearing a uniform should be making the choices.

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile you know about my strong belief in numbers. But there’s something about managerial “feel” that numbers can’t replace. And “feel” is really a catch-all term. Maybe it’s knowing when to yank a pitcher or maybe it’s knowing when your player needs a pat on the back or a kick in the pants. And maybe it’s even knowing when to ignore a front-office directive.

However you want to describe it, it’s why good teams follow Dusty Baker or Davey Johnson or Buck Showalter around.

The last three managers the Mets have hired had no previous big league managerial experience. It’s probably time to go in a different direction. Early in his Mets’ ownership, Cohen said, “I’m not crazy about people learning on my dime.” We’ve seen with Mickey Callaway and with Rojas the pratfalls of hiring a guy with no MLB experience.

While Showalter was mentioned above as a guy who can make a difference from the managerial chair, he’s not someone – in my opinion – that the Mets should target. Showalter’s strengths seem to be building a team up, rather than the guy who’s going to deliver a World Series. Maybe it’s naïve of me, with the Mets finishing under .500 the past two seasons, thinking that they don’t need to be built up.

Maybe the Billy Beane–Bob Melvin package is just what the Mets need. Melvin won 93 games in Seattle, 90 in Arizona and 97 in Oakland. He has a .514 winning percentage in 18 years as a manager. And it should be stated that the Mets had at least two interviews with Melvin when they ultimately picked Terry Collins. Another gift to the Mets from Jeff Wilpon.