After playoff run, Rojas challenges himself, teammates to improve in 2021
Miami Marlins shortstop Miguel Rojas knows the value of the team’s unexpected playoff run in 2020. Making the postseason is motivating him for 2021.
Miguel Rojas’ day began on the back fields of the Miami Marlins’ spring training complex in Jupiter.
Alongside him at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium on Wednesday, as has been the case the past few days, was a contingent of
players from last season’s unexpected playoff run.
Jesus Aguilar. Monte Harrison. Lewis Brinson. Jorge Alfaro. Jazz Chisholm. Prospects such as Victor Victor Mesa, Victor Mesa Jr. and Nasim Nunez were there, too, as were a few members of the coaching staff (bench coach James Rowson and hitting coach Eric Duncan among them).
The camaraderie is important to Rojas, the leader of the Marlins’ clubhouse. So, too, is knowing the Marlins’ core from last season is committed to improving as they try to carry that momentum into the 2021 season.
“Being able to get to the playoffs, that got me motivated,” Rojas said at a drive-thru food distribution at Marlins Park on Wednesday. “I sent a message to the guys and said, ‘If everybody indi
vidually gets a little better this offseason, this team is going to be better in
2021.’ ”
That’s important, because right now the Marlins are going to need those mainstays from a year ago to up their production when the new season begins. The Marlins broke their 16-year playoff drought, but they know it came in an abbreviated, 60-game season and with an expanded playoff field.
What will be key for the Marlins is showing they can replicate the results over a full 162-game season (or as close to a full season as 2021 will allow as Major League Baseball continues to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic).
“For me, it’s a challenge for myself to get better, even when I’m getting older,” said Rojas, who turns 32 in February and is coming off a year in which he hit .304 with four home runs, 10 doubles, 20 RBI and 20 runs scored through 40 regular-season games. “I think in a full season, I’m going to have to be more well-prepared than what I was with the 60-game season. I wasn’t feeling that good by the end of the year.”
That’s why Rojas is already working out, two months before spring training is scheduled to begin. That’s why he’s encouraging the rest of his teammates to do the same and why he’s happy to be seeing the commitment many of them are making.
“The bond that we’re creating is special,” Rojas said. “We’re getting guys involved, even from the minor leagues with the big league club guys. … I think it’s really important not just for us as we get ready for next year but for all the kids who didn’t play in 2020 to have the opportunity to have the complex open.”
THIS AND THAT
Rojas said he had a 50-minute phone conversation with new general manager Kim Ng about a week after she was hired. The discussion mostly focused on the state of the team and how it can improve on last season’s playoff run.
His first message to her? “You have to be ready to win,” Rojas said, “because that’s what we’re planning to do here.”
There were no fans in Marlins Park during last season’s playoff run, but Rojas said he managed to keep in touch with fans and received a lot of feedback via social media.
“People are behind us,” Rojas said. “I was really, really happy to make it to the playoffs this year because that’s something that was historical, but it didn’t really feel the same without the fans who have been behind us since 2018 when the new ownership got here. They were asking a lot of questions. ... But now, just two years later, we’re in the playoffs. I want to see that excitement because I remember in 2018 there were a lot of questions — more bad than good — about why we were doing that kind of rebuilding that we were doing at that time.”
Rojas also knows the value of being seen in the community. That’s why he was at Marlins Park on Wednesday, helping hand out meal packages to more than 1,000 families. Over the course of the year, the Marlins and the Marlins Foundation have distributed or donated more than 800,000 meals, 24,000 bottles of hand cleanser and 20,000 face coverings to the South Florida community.
“With the commitment and the responsibility for the whole organization to be part of the community — not just on the field, but off the field as well, especially this year where we know we’ve dealt with a lot of uncertainties and things that put the community away from us and from the organization — it’s important that we keep doing stuff like this,” Rojas said. “We continue to show up and telling them that they’re part of our organization and they’re a big part of what we want to do.”