Mets for the 2022 season will have a manager not named Luis Rojas after being in charge of the team for 2 years, Mets won’t pick up the club option in his contract for next year and will begin the search for a new manager likely after they hire a new President of Baseball Operations.
Background:
Rojas, 40, born in Dominican Republic, will leave the Mets with a record of 103 W-119 L after being promoted to manager on January 22 after the Mets mutually parted ways with Carlos Beltran for his involvement in the Astros’ Scandal in 2017.
The Mets hired him as a coach for the Dominican Summer League in 2007 and for the Gulf Coast League in 2008. He became a coach for the Savannah Sand Gnats in 2010 but transferred back to manage the Gulf Coast League Mets in 2011.
On his return to Savannah from 2012 through 2014, Rojas won the 2013 South Atlantic League championship and was named Manager of the Year the following season.Afterwards, Rojas became the manager for the St. Lucie Mets and led them to the top of their division. After managing the Mets’ minor leagues with quite success he got promoted to the Major league as Quality Control Coach back in 2019 working under former manager Mickey Callaway.
Rojas wasn’t the first choice to be the Mets’ manager; he was basically Beltran’s replacement. They hoped that a young and inexperienced new manager, known inside the organization, could help them to be a competitive team again, results weren’t the expected ones.
I think Rojas wasn’t fully in charge of the team and he was just there to keep a good chemistry in the clubhouse while the Front Office did all the work, reason to believe that was some lineups that the team put in the games and way to strict on the matchups a lefty against a lefty and a rightie against a rightie.
He isn’t to blame for the Mets failure in back to back years but he also wasn’t a solution, Rojas would be a manager to hire for a longer project, and inexperienced person, to get knowledge about the business, how things work when working with an MLB roster, not someone to have for immediate success which is the current path of the new regime with an expectation of a World series in 3 to 5 years.
Next steps:
The Mets won’t be hiring a new manager with the PBO spot still empty; that will be his first task once hired.
Some names are already on the radar and will likely be talked about in the hiring of the new PBO some of those names being mentioned are Carlos Beltran, Todd Zeile or some experienced managers like Clint Hurdle, Ron washington, Buck Showalter among others.
I personally don’t think an experienced manager is a good choice mostly because they are ‘’Old school’’ and that’s not the approach the Mets want with new development in the analytics department.
