The New York Mets made prospect Carson Benge their Opening Day right fielder, and the choice wasn't hard at all.
The New York Mets have a new right fielder, and he’ll be making his big league debut on Opening Day to boot. Prospect Carson Benge will take Juan Soto’s old spot when the Mets open the season on Thursday at Citi Field against the Pittsburgh Pirates, which would have been a shocking prediction as recently as a month or two ago as Soto will move to left field.
Benge earned this promotion, and it wasn’t easy, despite his reputation as a formidable fielder. The Mets brought in legitimate competition to give Benge a battle for the right field spot in Mike Tauchman, but after going 0-for-5 in his first game, Benge started hitting and didn’t stop. According to Anthony DiComo of MLB.com, Benge’s slash line was .366/.435/.439 with a double, a triple and a stolen base over 46 spring plate appearances.
The 23-year old outfielder will likely start the season hitting eighth, but Benge didn’t exactly show the kind of nerves you’d usually expect from a rookie at the bottom of the order.
“I already came in with that confidence knowing I could hang with the best,” Benge said earlier this spring. “I feel like you’re doing yourself a disservice to not do that, to think that these guys are so much better than you or anything like that. So coming in, I felt like I belonged.”
Benge is the No. 16 prospect in all of baseball, and according to DiComo he’s the highest-ranked Mets prospect to make his debut since catcher Francisco Alvarez made his debut in 2022.
At this point Mets fans know his backstory fairly well, but let’s review anyway. He was a two-way player and a teammate of pitcher Nolan McLean at Oklahoma State, and the Mets made him the 19th overall pick of the 2024 draft. He rose up rapidly through the minor league system, posting a slash line of .280/.389/.468 with 17 homers and 25 stolen bases over 131 minor league games according to DiComo.
He struggled at Triple-A Syracuse late last year as he hit just .178 in 24 games, but Benge came to camp ready. He’s not expected to hit much for power early in his career, but Benge has shown an uncanny ability to make contact, even in two-strike counts.
“He can beat you in multiple different ways,” said Troy Snitker, Benge’s new hitting coach. “He can back a heater up and hit it hard over the shortstop’s head, and man, you leave a mistake, and he can hit it 430 feet into the stands. It’s an impressive repertoire of skills.”
Tauchman gave him a run for the right field job, but he went down with a meniscus tear over the weekend, which made the decision even easier and more obvious. Benge’s Opening Day pitching opponent will be Paul Skenes, so it will be interesting to see if his ability to make contact holds up in that matchup.