{"id":604986,"date":"2026-03-04T04:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T04:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/604986\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T04:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T04:03:18","slug":"poll-will-carson-benge-break-camp-with-the-mets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/604986\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll: Will Carson Benge Break Camp With The Mets?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mets overhauled their offense this past winter, and most of the players they shipped out have been swapped out for new faces. They weren\u2019t traded for one another, but Marcus Semien<\/a> is taking Jeff McNeil<\/a>\u2018s spot at second base.\u00a0Pete Alonso<\/a> is an Oriole, and Jorge Polanco<\/a> will take up plenty of the first base reps in his absence (although new third baseman Bo Bichette<\/a> is arguably more of a direct replacement for Alonso\u2019s big right-handed bat). One player who wasn\u2019t directly replaced, however, is left fielder Brandon Nimmo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After Nimmo was dealt to the Rangers to land Semien, the Mets seemed like the most logical landing spot for star outfielder Kyle Tucker<\/a>. The Mets pursued him, but Tucker ended up going to the Dodgers. The Mets quickly pivoted to signing Bichette to fill out the middle of their lineup. A trade for Luis Robert Jr.<\/a> patched up the existing hole the club they had in center following Cedric Mullins<\/a>\u2018 departure, but that still left a vacancy in an outfield corner. That position has more or less remained unfilled. Mike Tauchman<\/a> (minor league deal) and MJ Melendez<\/a> (split big league deal) signed as free agents, but the Mets are planning to give top prospect Carson Benge<\/a> an opportunity to earn the big league job.<\/p>\n

After Tucker and Cody Bellinger<\/a> came off the market, there weren\u2019t many surefire impact outfielders available. Benge could wind up being more productive than someone like Harrison Bader<\/a> or Mike Yastrzemski<\/a>, so it made little sense to block him by signing a player of that caliber to a multi-year deal. Benge is a consensus top-20 prospect in the sport who reached Triple-A near the end of his 2025 campaign. Plenty of other top prospects, including Konnor Griffin<\/a> of the Pirates, JJ Wetherholt<\/a> of the Cardinals, Justin Crawford<\/a> of the Phillies, and Bryce Eldridge<\/a> of the Giants stand a strong chance of making their organization\u2019s big league roster out of Spring Training despite little to no MLB experience.<\/p>\n

Does Benge fall into that category as well? There\u2019s little doubt that the team views him as a long-term option, but he hasn\u2019t exactly forced the issue with his minor league output. Benge played in 24 Triple-A games late last year but slashed only .178\/.272\/.311. It\u2019s a sample of just 103 plate appearances, of course, and his work at both High-A (.302\/.417\/.480 in 271 plate appearances) and Double-A (.317\/.407\/.571 in 145 plate appearances) earlier in the year showed how electric his bat could be. Benge is out to a 4-for-14 start this spring.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s some competition in camp. The aforementioned Melendez never found his footing in the majors with Kansas City but long ranked as a top prospect. He\u2019s a career .257\/.340\/.496 hitter with 35 home runs in 173 Triple-A games. He\u2019s homered twice and added a double in 11 spring plate appearances.<\/p>\n

Tauchman, a 35-year-old veteran, provides a low-cost alternative with a steady big league track record. He split time between right field and DH for the White Sox last year after spending two seasons as a part-time outfielder for the Cubs. Over the past three seasons, he\u2019s slashed .255\/.359\/.381 with a wRC+ of 111, balancing a 21.3% strikeout rate against a strong 13.0% walk rate. Tauchman\u2019s first nine plate appearances this spring have produced a double and a homer.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re still about three weeks out from Opening Day, which provides Benge with plenty of time to show himself to be MLB capable, or for Tauchman to cool off. There are plenty of aspects to consider with the Benge decision. Sending him to Triple-A could allow him more seasoning after struggling there late last year and could buy the Mets an extra year of club control. Breaking camp with Benge on the roster could open the Mets up to some future draft considerations via MLB\u2019s prospect promotion incentives.<\/p>\n

What do MLBTR readers think? Will the Mets commit to Benge as their opening day right fielder, or will they go for another option like Tauchman or Melendez? Have your say in the poll below:<\/p>\n

\t\t\tWho will start in right field for the Mets on Opening Day 2026?<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTotal votes: 1,117\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Thank you for voting!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mets overhauled their offense this past winter, and most of the players they shipped out have been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,5805,6647,8532,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-604986","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-carson-benge","10":"tag-mike-tauchman","11":"tag-mj-melendez","12":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116168923928958731","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}