NY Mets manager Luis Rojas is already on the Twitter hot seat

New York Mets manager Luis Rojas shouldn’t get fired anytime soon nor should we expect the front office to pull the trigger on him just yet. The team is playing well—aside from a few hiccups—and there’s time to fix a lot of those issues.

Let’s not forget, the team has been without two of their best starting pitchers all year and Jacob deGrom is currently on the IL. This team is built to be a lot better than it already has been.

This hasn’t stopped fans from picking apart everything Rojas has done. Fair enough. I, too, have been left unimpressed by the second-year skipper. Excluding how boring and monotonous he tends to be in interviews, there are plenty of other reasons as to why social media is ready to fire Rojas.

The Mets are winning in spite of Luis Rojas and his totally average managerial skills

What separates the great managers from the mediocre and bad ones is simple. You need to feel like the team would run through a wall for the guy. It’s a judgment call. There needs to be some type of personality or public praise for the guy for us to come to this conclusion.

In Rojas’ case, those moments don’t seem to exist.

Correct me if I’m wrong (I know you LOVE to do that, internet), but has anyone publicly credited Rojas for his top-notch managerial skills? It seems the players like him because of how familiar they are with his existence within the organization. Many come up through the farm system as players with him on the coaching side. Beyond this, nobody ever really seems to praise what he does in the game or behind the scenes.

I think in 2021 we all realize a baseball manager isn’t as important to a team’s success as it was in the past. Front offices control many decisions. Owners are far more than the ones that pay the bills. They can meddle in everyday decisions and control something you might think would have otherwise been assigned to the manager.

Although Rojas may not be able to fully manage the team like his predecessors, this doesn’t mean we’re unable to judge his work. From what I have seen, there’s nothing special.

In 280 words or less, there’s one way to describe how I truly feel about Rojas’ tenure:

How the fans feel about Luis Rojas

Fans are often quick to sign into social media (do they ever sign out?) and let their passion flags fly. One questionable decision by Rojas puts him under a microscope. Lately, we’ve seen Rojas placed in a petri dish with his handling of the bullpen. How a skipper handles his relievers and when he decides to pinch hit for people are the two most analyzed moves he can make in a given game. Most fans will agree: this hasn’t been a strength of Rojas’ of late.

Winning does cure all. However, I’m not so sure Rojas has the personality to win over fans as much as he can possibly win games. A known second-choice for the job after Carlos Beltran, he may not be on Steve Cohen’s hot seat, but the fans seem to have already moved on from imagining him leading this team far.

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I get it. Fans are fanatical. They were here before Rojas and will remain after he is gone, a decision which may come sooner than later if his players are unable to piece it all together.