Mets tab Rojas as their manager

NEW YORK – After parting ways with Carlos Beltrán, Mets’ leadership met to ponder its next move. The organization was embarking on a rare but unfortunate feat of hiring a second manager in the same offseason.

Members of the baseball operations team spent time reviewing their notes from the first search, including the criteria they used when replacing Mickey Callaway. They also asked themselves many questions for this search.

Have circumstances changed now that would change what we’d want in a manager? Do we have the right candidates? Should we expand the search?

To answer the first one: The Mets felt their criteria remained the same, meaning they could proceed with candidates interviewed in October. Hiring a manager three weeks before the spring training report date is not ideal, but eventually one name rose to the top.

General manager Brodie Van Wagenen on Wednesday said the team is finalizing a multiyear deal to make quality control coach Luis Rojas the new manager. In this hire, the Mets navigated the situation as best they could.

“I think it’s the fit,” Van Wagenen said. “It’s where the team is, it’s what culture we’re trying to create. We felt that – and this is something that Luis spoke to us about – is that he has a good finger on the pulse for this particular team. He was part of it last year, he was part of the momentum ride that we had over the second half of the year and the success we had. From our evaluation standpoint, that was a separator for him over some of the other candidates we had.”