Miguel Rojas says Jazz Chisholm Jr. 'crossed a line' with Marlins clubhouse comments

[Ely Sussman]

On The Chris Rose Rotation, Rojas explained why he and other Marlins veterans felt they had a responsibility to enforce the team's rules inside the clubhouse. He has no interest in reconciling with Chisholm.

Jazz Chisholm Jr. gave us his side of the story. Now, Miguel Rojas has responded. Co-hosting Tuesday's episode of The Chris Rose Rotation, the former Miami Marlins shortstop spent about 16 minutes discussing MLB clubhouse dynamics in light of Chisholm repeatedly bashing him on The Pivot podcast last week.

"Whatever you want to say about me as a player...you can have that opinion," Rojas said. "But you saying that I'm a 'bad person' when you don't even know me, when you don't even know where I come from, you're not even part of what's close to me or have the opportunity to sit down with me and getting to know me as a person, that's kinda what bothers me."

"There's things that never should leave a clubhouse," Rojas continued. "I'm not expecting everybody to like me and I don't like everybody, but that doesn't mean I can go out there and tell everybody what's happening in the clubhouse."

To recap, Chisholm and Rojas spent parts of three seasons together as Marlins teammates (2020-22). Chisholm told The Pivot that those were "the worst three years of probably my life" largely because of how "our captain" (referring to Rojas) and other veteran players treated him.

During the 2022 season (Rojas' final one in Miami), the Marlins held an awkward team meeting after veteran players complained to manager Don Mattingly about how Jazz was violating the team's dress code and other off-the-field rules. From his perspective, it seemed as though "they wanted to put me in a box and it wasn't happening cuz I'm not ever gonna be put in a box."

Chisholm felt alienated by his teammates. "I felt like I was at that stage of being a kid again when I was just like, 'Nobody wanna hang with me but my family,'" he recalled.

"When you come into a place, there's rules in place and someone is gonna keep you accountable," Rojas explained. "That's all that the vets were trying to do: keeping people accountable for their actions because we have rules in place."

As I had guessed initially, Rojas confirms that Jesús Sánchez was the player who Marlins vets reprimanded for doing the "Soto Shuffle" in the batter's box. "You're not f***ing Juan Soto," Chisholm remembers them saying. "You shouldn't be doing that."

Rojas disputes that. He claims their message to Sánchez was: "Do whatever you want to do. We're just telling you that it's gonna be better if you just take care of your business and be yourself and go out there and focus on what you need to focus on, which is playing baseball and performing."

Is there any chance that Chisholm and Rojas can patch things up? Unlikely.

"I'm not up to having a person in my life that thinks that I'm a bad person or a piece of ****," Rojas said.

The full conversation between Rojas and Chris Rose is embedded below.

 

View full article

[Slacker Mills]

All I remember about Miguel Rojas is him in that ridiculous monkey mask, shoving shaving cream in the faces of players being interviewed near the dugout in the post games. If that's what leadership and maturity are all about ... well, what can you even say.

[Slacker Mills]

And as for Jazz, 100% of his attention should be on cutting down on his strikeouts.

[Ely Sussman]

2 hours ago, Slacker Mills said:

All I remember about Miguel Rojas is him in that ridiculous monkey mask, shoving shaving cream in the faces of players being interviewed near the dugout in the post games. If that's what leadership and maturity are all about ... well, what can you even say.

That was before his "captaincy" began to be fair, but I agree it was one of the more distinct aspects of his Marlins tenure haha.

[MRDHU75]

All this s*** is irrelevant now man.

Jazz is on our team and Miggy isn't

It's about to get started and Jazz needs to focus on performing.

[One Regend]

Honestly, Jazz needs to focus less on Miguel Rojas and focus more on hitting left-handed pitching and staying on the field for more than 97 games. He also needs to participate in practices and actually wake up and show up to meetings. He has bigger fish to fry. He shouldn't waste his time with someone who was essentially replacement-level in his entire tenure with the Marlins, and was handwrapped the Team Captain role because literally no one else was suited for it.

[Ely Sussman]

5 minutes ago, One Regend said:

Honestly, Jazz needs to focus less on Miguel Rojas and focus more on hitting left-handed pitching and staying on the field for more than 97 games. He also needs to participate in practices and actually wake up and show up to meetings. He has bigger fish to fry. He shouldn't waste his time with someone who was essentially replacement-level in his entire tenure with the Marlins, and was handwrapped the Team Captain role because literally no one else was suited for it.

Yes. I can sorta see what Jazz was thinking, being a year removed from his dark times, recognizing that he's in a better place now and being eager to express that. But a more mature person vents like that among family and friends instead of going in front of a microphone to embarrass and burn bridges.

[Julio]

I agree with Miguel that some things that happen in the clubhouse should remain in the clubhouse but I also think Miguel thinks too highly of himself, a big ego. Specially for someone with such a poor production on the offensive side.