The Mets are working to finalize a multi-year deal to make Luis Rojas their next manager.
Rojas, 38, had been one of the Mets' three finalists for manager, along with Hensley Meulens and Tony DeFrancesco, SNY's Andy Martino reported Tuesday.
The Mets' coaching staff around Rojas will remain intact, according to Martino. That staff includes Meulens (the bench coach, who had also been linked to the managerial opening in Boston) and DeFrancesco (the first base coach who managed Triple-A Syracuse in 2019).
"He's respected by the players, he's trusted by the players and he's someone that we have great confidence in his ability to lead our team now and his abihlity to put our players and put us in the best position to succeed," GM Brodie Van Wagenen said Wednesday.
Rojas has been in the Mets' organization since 2007 and has managed for them at five levels of the minors, including Double-A Binghamton. He interviewed for the manager job earlier this offseason before it went to Carlos Beltran, but was not among the finalists.
While coaching for the Mets in the minors, Rojas was voted by his peers as the best managerial prospect in the Florida State League in 2015 and 2016 after being voted as the best managerial prospect in the South Atlantic League in 2014, according to JJ Cooper of Baseball America.
"He's very, very well qualified," Van Wagenen added. "We anticipate him to be a great addition to our team. We think he has the ability to be consistent, to be calm under pressure and to understand the opportunity that this team has as we head into the 2020 season."
The son of Felipe Alou and brother of Moises Alou, Rojas is well-versed in analytics and is well-respected by current Mets players (having already managed most of them in the minors), including Jeff McNeil, Pete Alonso, and Dominic Smith.
"I think he'd be a great big league manager," McNeil told Nathalie Alonso of MLB.com this past July. "He knows the game really well. He comes from a big baseball family. His emotions [are] real calm. He gets along well with the players. He's just a baseball guy. I think he'd be a tremendous manager."
After the Mets and Beltran parted ways, Rojas quickly gained steam as a potential replacement.
Despite pleading from some fans who wanted the Mets to interview established big league managers such as Dusty Baker and Buck Showalter, the Mets instead focused their search on internal candidates who were already familiar with the organization.
None of those internal candidates were more familiar with the organization than Rojas, who will now be at the helm of a team that expects to build on their 86-win output of 2019 and reach the postseason in 2020.