With Game 162 done, Mets will begin their annual hiring search

ATLANTA — Year one of the Steve Cohen era looked a lot like so many of the years before it: Same old Mets, same old mess.

The merciful end came Sunday with a 5-0 loss to Atlanta, which is headed to the playoffs with its fourth consecutive NL East title.

The Mets finished 77-85, third in the division, 11 1/2 games behind the champions. This was the fourth time in five seasons they had a losing record, and the fifth in a row that they missed the postseason.

And now they await change — maybe huge change. There was a sense within the Mets’ clubhouse, players said, that this might have been the end of their own mini-era, the position-player core of recent years potentially getting broken up this winter.

"We all look around and know this could be our last game together," J.D. Davis said. "We love each other. It’s going to be different. It’s going to suck."

Francisco Lindor said: "That’s when you don’t take any pitch for granted. You don’t know what’s going to happen next year."

And manager Luis Rojas: "This exact group is not going to be the same one probably next year. They’re mindful of that. We’ll see what happens."

Up next for the Mets is their October tradition: a big-time hiring search. They most recently appeared in the playoffs in 2016, when they lost the NL wild-card game. Every season since then has ended with the team looking for a new chief baseball executive or a new manager.

This year, it might be both.

Cohen and team president Sandy Alderson this week are expected to begin pursuing candidates for their president of baseball operations opening. Theo Epstein, Billy Beane and David Stearns are the names most commonly linked to the job, though it is not a certainty the Mets end up with any of them.

Meanwhile, Rojas’ contract is expiring. He said he has "no idea" when he will speak with Alderson about his status, but he plans to stick around New York for the coming days.

"Whenever that happens, that’ll happen," he said. "We should find out soon."

The eventual new hire(s) will inherit a team that had an awfully eventful season, if not a successful one.

A sampling from the past six months or so: Lindor agreed to a 10-year, $341 million contract extension hours before the calendar flipped to April, then was booed by the home crowd within the month. The opening series was postponed due to the Nationals’ COVID-19 outbreak. Michael Conforto leaned his elbow into a pitch to get the Mets a walk-off win in the home opener. Pete Alonso credited their fleeting offensive success to a fictional "hitting approach coach." The Mets fired their actual hitting coaches days later in early May. Lindor and Jeff McNeil had a heated midgame discussion, out of view of cameras, and made up a story about debating about rodents. Kevin Pillar was hit in the face by a pitch. They had benches-clearing episodes with the Phillies, Diamondbacks, Pirates and Yankees. Jacob deGrom suffered a series of injuries, including a partially torn ligament in his right elbow. Javier Baez admitted he, Lindor and others were giving Mets fans the thumbs-down as a form of booing them. Acting general manager Zack Scott was arrested for drunk driving. Cohen tweeted a lot, less so lately.

"Here I have learned that things go by quick," said Lindor, the marquee addition last offseason, joining the Mets from Cleveland via a January blockbuster trade. "One thing happens, we talk about it, it’s discussed, the next day it’s something different or two days later people will forget about it. It’s about, what can you do on a daily basis? And that’s good."

The Mets were in first place in the NL East for more than 100 days. As they toiled in their last game — totaling three hits, trailing as soon as Noah Syndergaard allowed two runs in the first inning — Rojas caught himself staring for a moment at his club’s record.

"I look at our record up there — by the way, it’s up there on the big board here the entire game — and we were playing pretty good baseball at one point in the season and that fell apart," he said. "As the manager, you gotta feel responsible for not winning enough games."