Luis Rojas: Mets players are a 'special' group

On Wednesday, Tim Britton of The Athletic reported the New York Mets "likely" will not retain the services of manager Luis Rojas past what became a disappointing season considering the high hopes had for the squad back in February, and Mets team president Sandy Alderson told reporters that same day the club will decide on Rojas' future soon and before it hires a new president of baseball operations. 

Rojas isn't attached to the Mets past the last game of the year this coming Sunday, and he seemed to offer an unofficial farewell during his media obligation ahead of Thursday's home finale versus the Miami Marlins. 

"We haven’t achieved what we wanted to achieve, but first of all, the atmosphere in the clubhouse has been, for me, one of the most important things that I can think of these last two years here and how everyone gets along in the clubhouse, how everyone just prepares and gets ready to play to go out there," Rojas explained, per Ryan Morik of SNY. "Even though we haven’t gotten the result, that’s the one thing I wanted to single out, that it’s been pretty special with both groups, last year’s group and this year, which I think it’s even more special than the 2020 group and how different that year was."

He continued: "I enjoyed my time here the last two years being the manager. It’s been fun every day just working with the guys and connecting with them and preparing." 

Under Rojas, the Mets went 101-117 heading into Thursday's action and missed the postseason in each of the past two years. The 2020 season was the difficult pandemic-shortened campaign, and the Mets were repeatedly plagued by injuries throughout the past six months.