What to expect from Mets phenom Benge in big league debut
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The Mets traded Brandon Nimmo to the Rangers back in November and announced Juan Soto would be moving to left field at the start of Spring Training – two moves that created an opening in the other outfield corner. Speaking in February, Soto offered a preview of who could be looming to seize the spot.
“I heard the prospect is big time [in] right field,” said the New York superstar. “We’re going to see if he can make the team.”
More than a month later, Soto and the Mets have their answer. Carson Benge – New York’s No. 2 and MLB Pipeline’s No. 16 overall prospect – has made the team and will be the club’s Opening Day right fielder against the Pirates at Citi Field on Thursday.
Benge got plenty of opportunities to win the job in Florida and tied for the Mets lead in Grapefruit League appearances with 46. (New faces Bo Bichette and Marcus Semien joined him atop that leaderboard.) His 15 hits were also most for the club, and he finished with a .366/.435/.439 line with a triple, a double and a stolen base.
To whatever extent Spring Training data is meaningful, the left-handed slugger showed signs of why some evaluators believe he could be a plus hitter at the top level, namely that he ran a 91 percent in-zone contact rate in the small spring sample. Only Bichette (91.5) ran a better one among Mets hitters with at least 20 plate appearances, and he’s a perennial batting-title contender when healthy.
But the quality of contact raised some flags, and that deserves following during Benge’s first foray into The Show. He ran an average of a -2 degree launch angle, and appropriately, 71.9 percent of his batted balls came on the ground. Beyond that, he also hit 50 percent of his balls the other way, a jump from 38.9 percent in his first full season.
That isn’t to say the 2024 19th overall pick isn’t capable of providing power at this early stage of his career. He topped out with a 110.8 mph exit velocity down in Florida for the Mets’ fourth-highest EV of the spring, and that’s in line with his 110.4 mph max during his 24-game stay with Triple-A Syracuse last year.
In his one lone full season in the Minor Leagues, Benge hit .281/.385/.472 with 15 homers, seven triples and 25 doubles over 116 games across High-A, Double-A and Triple-A; he slugged as high as .571 during a 32-game spin with Double-A Binghamton, during which he elevated much better on contact with a groundball rate that fell from 45.1 percent at High-A to 38.8. That was a promising trendline, though it’s a different story making such an adjustment in the Eastern League and making a similar one in the National League.
Benge’s likeliest outcome is a batter who can hit in the .270-.290 range, take his walks and push for 17-20 homers. With his above-average speed, he could even be a 20-20 candidate if the angles off the bat improve. With Soto, Bichette, Francisco Lindor and Jorge Polanco in the lineup, the Mets don’t need Benge to jump straight into the heart of the order upon his debut, and his likely placement toward the bottom of the lineup could help him ease all the more into the Majors.
What makes the Mets and the entire prospect industry so interested in Benge in the first place is his well-rounded profile anyways. Those wheels helped him move around to all three outfield spots in 2025, and he was even considered a possibility for center before New York traded for Luis Robert Jr. A former two-way player at Oklahoma State – much like fellow Mets rookie Nolan McLean – Benge retains his plus arm strength and touched above 96 mph on a pair of throws this spring; the Mets only had one outfield throw above that level in all of last regular season.
That combination of bat-to-ball skills, budding power, speed, range and arm strength is how you get a superstar to move positions and earn a shot, to borrow a phrase, at the big time.