“The confidence here is contagious.”
Luis Rojas sat down with the media for a short time on Thursday afternoon to discuss the first two days of camp and his main takeaways so far. Early on in his availability, Rojas was asked about the prospect of using an opener and said, “We have individuals on our roster that can do something like that. We can also use different strategies on different lineups.”
Rojas attributed a lot of the team’s strong camaraderie to two of the team’s starting pitchers: Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard. While speaking of other starters, Rojas said of David Peterson, who is entering his first full MLB season: “The guy that’s hungry. The guy that’s humble. The guy that’s very talented. He’s going to keep advancing organically.”
When asked about minor league players he’s had the chance to watch, he highlighted Matthew Allan, the team’s top pitching prospect. “I did see Matt Allan today throw a side and it was impressive. We didn’t talk much after it, but the ball looks really good coming out of his hand.”
Rojas went on to talk about Francisco Alvarez, who is in the conversation for the team’s top prospect honors with Ronny Mauricio. “This kid Francisco Alvarez,” started Rojas, “we’ve seen him take BP a couple of times. He’s got some hit ability, I’ll tell you that just from watching the BP. At a young age.” Alvarez was recently ranked as the 48th best prospect in baseball by MLB Pipeline and the fourth best catching prospect.
Lastly, Rojas took a moment to talk about recent retiree, Tim Tebow. “I got the chance to manage Tim in Double-A in Binghamton. Tim’s passion for the game is impressive — off the chart. I saw improvement in him everyday.”
