Today Is About Eli Manning, Not Luis Rojas Or The Mets
Today, the Mets are introducing Luis Rojas as the newest manager of the New York Mets. It’s going to be a complete afterthought because it is also the day Eli Manning is formally announcing his retirement.
It is a shame for Rojas, who worked his entire life to reach this point only to have it completely overshadowed by a legend. To a certain extent, being the son of Felipe Alou, the brother of Moises Alou, and the cousin of Mel Rojas, he’s accustomed to it.
The same could be said about Eli. After all, he is the son of Archie Manning and younger brother of Peyton Manning. Eli rose above it and built his own Hall of Fame career, and in what is a historically crowded New York landscape, he is one of the true legends.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=vJ5fo5K1_EU
Eli arguably is part of the greatest play in NFL history with the “Helmet Catch,” and a few years later, he arguably threw the greatest pass to Manningham. Both took increased importance not just because they happened in the Super Bowl, but also because it took out a Patriots dynasty.
There’s so much more to his great Hall of Fame career, and anything Eli does is automatically the biggest story in New York. In fact, it’s even bigger news right now than Derek Jeter being voted into the Hall of Fame.
This day and his level of fame and accompanying adoration may not have been contemplated when Eli was a kid or even when he was the first overall pick in the draft. And yet, today he outshines them all.
That’s certainly instructive for Rojas. The Mets might’ve overlooked him when they hired Carlos Beltran. Everyone is going to overlook him today.
But make no mistake, if Rojas is a big winner in New York, he’s going to be a legend, and no one will be overlooking him no matter how crowded the New York landscape is.
Today is about Eli, and he both deserves this day and the adoration of Giants fans. Tomorrow and the next is up for grabs. For the Mets sake, let’s hope Rojas inserts himself into the discussion and is one day overshadowing a future New York great.
Eli, like Peyton, is as fine a person as exists in sports. I’m a Jet fan but have always rooted for him because he is a great example of how an athlete should carry himself. And an Hall of Famer.
That being said, as a Met fan down here in Colombia I’m starving to hear Rojas speak us!
I’m excited for Rojas, but I wish the Mets treated this as more than a Friday news dump.
Rojas and Mets fans deserved better.
If you had asked me yesterday “who is Eli Manning?” I would have said “football guy, right?” Now I can answer “New York football guy, right?”
Live and learn.
C – Ramos, Nido, Rivera
1B – Alsonso
2B – Cano, Lowrie, Guillorme
SS – Rosario, Guillorme
3B – McNeil, Lowrie, JD Davis
LF – JD Davis, D. Smith, McNeil
CF – Nimmo, Marisnick
RF – Conforto
(bench: Lowrie, Cespedes, Marisnick, Guillorme, Nido)
SP – deGrom
SP – Syndergaard
SP – Stroman
SP – Matz
SP – Porcello
RP – Lugo, Diaz, Familia, Betances, Wilson, Wacha, Zamora, Gsellman.
—–Seems all but set. If Cespedes isn’t healthy or has been dealt, Dom will take his spot. If Drew Smith is healthy he should get the last spot in the pen, depending on options. If the Mets want to roll the dice on Rosario being able to play almost every inning, at least early in the season, then Guillorme might start the season in Syracuse. In any case, there’s nothing major likely to happen now, nothing that’s likely to move the needle. A back of the napkin calculation says this team would win around 91 games if the 25 players not on the 26-man roster were replacement level, contributing nothing positive, but nothing negative.
But that’s not how it works.
Every team loses at least a little something from guys #27 through 50 or 55. The Mets lose far more than most. They lost 9 wins in 2018 from these players, and 7 wins from them in 2019. They’ve done very little to improve the back end of the system, so I expect them to lose 5 to 8 wins from the back half, knocking the team down to 83 to 86 wins overall depending on refinements of the projections, on deals, on any last minute moves or fortifications of the farm system, especially AAA.
We’ll see, but 86 wins is no more likely this year than last to get a team to the postseason.
For the love of god. Just watched the introductory presser. Rojas was up there for 17 minutes and said nothing even remotely insightful. It was nothing but cliche after cliche and simpleminded observation after simpleminded observation. Unbelievable.
Well, this is what he was picked for. “I’m really excited. Accountability. Accountability. Getting the guys ready for spring training. Analytics.”
It’s like listening to a college kid’s AI program fail the Turing Test.
What does anyone say other than cliches in their introductory press conference?
Over 17 entire minutes? Anyone with actual insight into the game, their situation, life in baseball–you know, someone thoughtful, intelligent, sagacious.
This shouldn’t be difficult.
He provided that
Wait—You can’t actually be defending plonking mindlessness.
Well, you clearly are, but you certainly shouldn’t be. This is not something to be admired, emulated, or defended. Rojas was just handed the keys to one of the small handful of truly prestigious jobs in sports–managing a baseball team in the biggest market in the Western hemisphere.
And you’re asserting that the one, unrepeatable opportunity to introduce yourself to millions of fans is just something to blow past, to obfuscate your way through; to put in the absolute minimum amount of effort required to get through, to get it over with.
If you tried this in an 8th grade English composition class you’d receive an “F” along with detention for making a mockery of the topic at hand.
—–I’m going to put it back on you: Go through that 17 minutes. Quote me one standout line. Just one. 17 minutes. The opportunity of a lifetime. Where’s the authentic insight you’d want from a truly keen baseball mind, worth of this extraordinary privilege? Just one.
Video: “Mets Officially Introduce New Manager Luis Rojas”
https://youtu.be/UNQIfIn1tHQ?t=1406
The nadir is around 23:26, after Rojas is asked about his “communication skills.” The answer is unbelievable, unintentional comedy. Here we go. He actually said THIS:
Rojas: “well uh I mention that’s one of the that’s one of the three uh most important things that’s one of the three uh that I want, uh, that I’m gonna be employing on a daily basis with the players of course we’re a front office and uh you know um um I, I, that’s my number one thing, communication. I think everyone everybody needs to know where they’re at I mean that makes things go easier, ah, you know, and uh and that’s something that I know we’re gonna we’re gonna have a strong one you know when it met when it when it’s when ah when you talk about players front office coaches uh, the media, you know we’re gonna have a really good communication.”
Rojas, towards the end: “I feel pretty secure of how this relationship is gonna be with uh, with with our roster, and uh, you know we’re here to win.”
Wow. The acumen. Great to see Rojas took such care to prepare this. Actually, the chilling part is that this was surely the best he could do. What’s he going to do when he’s NOT prepared, when events, moment to moment, take him by surprise–as events always do?
It’s completely indefensible.
It’s completely ridiculous to hold Rojas to a completely different standard than any manager or head coach who proceeded him.
No one gets up there and presents a master class on strategy. No one. Saying otherwise is plainly absurd.