Photo by Ed Delany/MMO

On Tuesday, New York Mets manager Luis Rojas assembled the entire team and spoke to them as a whole for the first time. Rojas gave few specifics on what was said but told SNY’s Mets Hot Stove what it means to manage in New York, emotions of the job, and how he plans to deal with his veteran players.

“Being in the organization so long, 15 years, and growing up here as a coach and becoming the manager as well, I think there’s a lot of emotions in the mix,” Rojas said. “I mean, there’s a lot of guys in the room that share some of that history, that journey to get to here.”

“So it was really special to be in the room talking to the guys and exchanging emotions, you know exchanging our ambitions that we have for the season and what we’re going to do in spring training, preparing as we started yesterday, and then taking that into the season and being successful, which is what we want.”

Rojas, 38, is the second-youngest manager in MLB and he is not that many years older than some of his veteran players.

“It helps knowing each other,” Rojas added. “I know the group, they know me back. There’s also some guys that are new faces to us…but they see me as their manager and they see me as a team member.”

“We have a great family there and there’s always going to be open communication — we’ve already established that. So it’s something that I’m pretty confident is going to go through easy, and our level of communication is going to be high as well.”

Rojas, who spent eight seasons managing in the minor leagues for the Mets before becoming the team’s quality control coach last year, brought an energy to the clubhouse with his remarks to the team, according to Wilson Ramos. The rookie manager spoke to the 63 players in camp plus about 50 Mets officials, including team owner Fred Wilpon.

Rojas came across as soft-spoken but in control and “very managerial” to his players

“He is talking like he’s the manager, like he commands everybody here, so I like that,” Ramos told Mike Puma of the New York Post. “Last year he was quiet, but I like the new Luis. He tried to give us some confidence, so that is very important for us. He knows everybody here, a lot of guys respect him, so that is very cool.”

With regard to making his big league managerial debut in the pressure cauldron known as New York, Rojas is looking forward to it saying, “I’m going to enjoy every moment of it. I know there will be challenges. I think there’s challenges in a 162-game calendar in baseball, there’s always challenges, you’re going to see some things. and I’m confident that I’m prepared to go through it and be accountable for the guys, be accountable with the media, be accountable for our great fan base which is very passionate.”

Passionate indeed, but the new skipper seems articulate, calm, confident and ready to get started. Many new managers have had successful spring trainings only to flop when the games counted.

Rojas somehow comes across as someone who will not fail, and if the responses by many of the players are any indication, he will have a solid clubhouse, a solid team, on top of a solid foundation earned through his career with the Mets franchise in different capacities. He seems to have already garnered respect, something needed for successful franchises to grow and achieve.