Carson Benge is Looking More and More Like a Future Star

Every year on Opening Day, one of the most exciting trends around the league is the top prospects who break camp with their respective parent clubs and how they could impact the team in the season ahead. In the New York Mets’ case this year, it was their top prospect, Carson Benge, who balled out and cracked the roster.

After an astounding 2025 season that saw Benge reach the top 20 of Just Baseball’s top 100 prospects list, the hype around his game was real. Benge had a legitimate chance to be an all-around player who could elevate the Mets and round out their roster, setting them up for success in 2026.

However, the early part of his career brought many challenges. He posted a 49 wRC+ across March and April, as the difficulty of adjusting to the big leagues was real.

Rather than optioning Benge to Triple-A to get some more fine-tuning, the Mets stuck with the 23-year-old, believing in him to break through and find himself yet again. Luckily for them, this decision has paid off handsomely, as Benge has looked more and more like a future star as time has passed.

Let’s take a closer look at the ups and downs of his journey to this point, and what he’s doing to look like a bona fide star in the big leagues.

All stats were taken prior to play on Friday, August 21st.

The Early Challenges

As previously mentioned, the early days of Benge’s career in the big leagues were rough, to say the least.

After showcasing an advanced, complete approach and profile across multiple levels, Benge’s previous strengths were cracking, and he was looking more human than ever before.

Through the first 27 games of his career, Benge slashed .189/.247/.278 with just two homers and a 49 wRC+, all marks that were far below expectations. Most notably, Benge’s approach was exposed, as his strikeout rate crept up near the 24% mark, an alarming development considering he had never struck out at a clip higher than 18.5% in any meaningful stint at a level in the minors.

In a lot of cases, when a player’s surface-level production isn’t great, there are often redeeming qualities under the surface that inspire some encouragement about this trend changing in the future. For Benge, this was not the case initially, as his underlying metrics were not confidence-inducing.

For example, through this 27-game span, Benge ran a hard-hit rate of just 41.5%, a decent dip from the 53.5% hard-hit rate he produced at Triple-A the year prior. As if this wasn’t enough, his barrel rate during this period was just 4.5%, as he recorded just three barrels out of 67 batted-ball events.

A detail that will become more important later in this story is Benge’s swing, which could have been a contributor to some of these earlier challenges. His swing (more specifically, his load) featured many loud moving pieces, which is something that major league pitchers could expose more regularly.

In the minors, even players with loud moves can have success due to the inconsistency of opposing stuff. Pitchers are less refined and lack the ability to locate pitches regularly, which can make it easier to punish mistakes.

In the big leagues, pitchers miss less, meaning those players with loud swings will be exposed more often as Benge was.

Between subpar surface-level and underlying metrics, a stance that was doing him more harm than good, and other minor factors, the early days of Benge’s career were far from easy. But these challenges allowed him to turn things around and inch closer to being the complete product he was expected to be.

Adapting and Overcoming

After a troublesome first taste of the big leagues, Benge began to turn things around in May, as he put together the best string of at-bats in his young big-league career. In 28 games this month, Benge would post an OBP near .400 with a wRC+ of 129, while steadily reducing his strikeout rate along the way.

Since May 1st, Benge is slashing .293/.355/.453 with 30 extra-base hits (13 HRs) and a wRC+ of 127. It’s been a tremendous turnaround, as Benge has been one of the best offensive forces on the Mets and one of the best rookies in baseball during this span.

Under the surface, things have improved as well. During this period, Benge’s barrel rate jumped to a very manageable 8.0%, which has done wonders for his extra-base hit potential. While his hard-hit rate has stayed steady, this is certainly something to note.

Another notable detail to take away from this stretch is that Benge has seen his strikeout rate come back down once again. It went from nearly 24% across March and April to now being barely over 20%.

While a four-ish percent decrease may not seem like much, this is integral to his success, and it serves as an indicator that he’s not being beaten as often.

As pointed out by MLB.com’s Jared Greenspan on August 21st, Benge has made some sizable changes to his stance, cleaning up a lot of the extra movement that I mentioned earlier as being harmful to his success. This story does a fantastic job of breaking down the differences, as Benge himself speaks on the change. But I want to break it down a little further.

In the side-by-side below, you’ll see two still frames of Benge. On the left is his setup earlier in the season on April 7th, and on the right is his setup from last homestand against the Padres on August 19th. He’s closed off his stance a ton, moving close to being even at the dish as opposed to being wide open.

What this change does is help Benge be more direct to the baseball with his swing, cutting out the extra movement and time between the start of his swing and contact. This is something that will produce more on-time swings, and thus more barreled balls, which we’ve seen.

In his story, Greenspan notes the improvement in how Benge has hit fastballs, which makes a ton of sense considering that Benge is having more on-time swings. He’s no longer being beaten by velocity; instead, he’s able to consistently barrel up these pitches.

By adapting to big league pitching, Benge has overcome the early challenges of his career and taken his game to a new level.

Where Can Benge Keep Improving?

After seeing how much Benge has improved at the plate, we’re left with one question: Where can he continue to improve?

Although he’s certainly looked far better as of late, Benge can still elevate his game by doing a few things.

For starters, getting the ball off the ground and into the air more frequently will do wonders for his power output, especially with his improved batted-ball data. He’s currently running a 46.2% ground-ball rate since May 1st, which isn’t ideal for power output.

Benge has also struggled a little bit with breaking balls, as he’s slugging just .333 against all breakers so far this season. While he isn’t whiffing against these pitches a ton, it’ll be important to learn to punish these types of offerings, as it’ll make it even harder for opposing pitchers to attack him.

With a very good defensive game, an ever-improving offensive game, and good speed on the bases, Benge is showcasing the foundation to be a five-tool player in the big leagues.

If he continues to ride out this hot streak, get the ball off the ground more often, and hit breaking balls better, there’s no doubting that he’s on track to become a cornerstone for the New York Mets in no time.

With Benge currently just 23 years old, he’s a budding star in this league, and he deserves more recognition for the strides he’s made this season.