Mets' fast-rising prospect Benge could impact '26 plans

NEW YORK -- From the outset of this offseason, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns made it clear that he wants to keep Carson Benge in his plans.

“When you have good players at the upper levels of the Minor Leagues,” Stearns said in November, “we have to find space for those players to play. Carson is among them. He’s not the only one, but he’s among them. So as we build out our team, we have to ensure that, as we move forward, there is room for our young players to get to the Major Leagues when they deserve to get there -- and have a chance to really contribute to our Major League team.”

Benge, the Mets’ No. 2 prospect, isn’t the only prospect the Mets hope can produce in 2026. Starting pitcher and No. 1 prospect Nolan McLean is a bonafide National League Rookie of the Year candidate who could wind up topping the rotation for years to come. Other young pitchers like Brandon Sproat and Jonah Tong in the rotation, or Dylan Ross and Ryan Lambert in the bullpen, may have outsized impacts on how this season goes. Even in the outfield, Benge is far from the Mets’ only prospect option; Jett Williams, Nick Morabito and A.J. Ewing all hold promise.

But Benge may be the X-factor of the Mets’ season. To begin, he has as much pedigree as anyone on the farm as a former Oklahoma State star and first-round Draft pick in 2024.

Then there is the matter of his production. At the start of 2025, Benge was part of a stacked High-A Brooklyn roster that included most of the Mets’ top position-player prospects. By late June, he was at Double-A Binghamton, where he hit eight home runs over one 20-game stretch. That earned Benge a promotion to Triple-A Syracuse, where he produced a .583 OPS the rest of the way. The Mets were fine with it. Not only did Benge’s batted-ball data show he was still making hard contact at that level, but team officials didn’t exactly hate the idea of a fast-rising 22-year-old experiencing a bit of failure.

“I’m genuinely happy about that, because it’s going to leave him with a kind of taste in his mouth where he wants to get to work in the offseason,” vice president of player development Andy Green said at the time. “So I think we just try to use all these circumstances to push guys forward.”

The Mets will certainly continue to push Benge forward -- perhaps aggressively so. Part of their calculus in trading Brandon Nimmo earlier this offseason was opening more avenues for Benge to contribute, regardless of what came next. They’re confident that Benge, a two-way athlete in college, can play left or center field -- the latter a new position for him that he’s taken well to in the pros.

Most important will be for Benge to prove he can hit at the highest level. So far over 131 career Minor League games, he owns a .280/.389/.468 slash line with 17 homers, seven triples, 28 doubles and 25 stolen bases. Benge has also demonstrated some of the best plate discipline of any Mets prospect, which should serve him well as he continues to climb the organizational ladder.

“Through the course of a season, he’s a guy that just really found his stride,” Green said. “It’s also a 140- or a 160-game season. You’re going to have moments where you feel like Superman, and you’re going to have moments where you can’t make contact with the baseball. He’s human. He’s going to have those moments, and his hot stretches were really good.”

Over the course of 2025, Benge continued adjusting to center field while also packing muscle onto his 6-foot-1 frame, focusing on nutrition and cutting down some of the longer mechanical movements in his swing -- and all that in his first full professional season. Given what Benge achieved, the Mets are quite obviously eager to see what more he can do in 2026.

“I feel like if I just keep playing my game, things will sort out for themselves,” Benge said earlier this year. “But I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job so far.”