The New York Mets 2025 Player Development Awards on Monday afternoon, and to no surprise, Carson Benge and Jonah Tong were selected as Player of the Year and Pitcher of the Year, respectively. Both players enjoyed extremely successful seasons that have rocketed them up national lists.
Benge, who was ranked the Mets’ 3 on Amazin Avenue’s 2025 Top 25 Prospects list, began the season in High-A Brooklyn and hit .302/.417/.480 in 60 games there with 18 doubles, 5 triples, 4 home runs, 15 stolen bases,
and 41 walks to 50 strikeouts. He was promoted to Double-A Binghamton at the end of June and appeared in 32 games for them, hitting .317/.407/.571 with 6 doubles, 1 triple, 8 home runs, 4 stolen bases, and 18 walks to 23 strikeouts. At the end of August, he was promoted to Triple-A Syracuse, where he remains and will finish out the 2025 season. The outfielder has faced his first real adversity this season in Syracuse, hitting .130/.197/.188 with 1 double, 1 home run, 2 stolen bases, and 5 walks to 17 strikeouts in 18 games through the time the award was issued. All in all, Benge has hit .279/.380/.460 in 110 games with 25 doubles, 6 triples, 13 home runs, 21 stolen bases in 25 attempts, and 64 walks to 90 strikeouts.
Likewise, Jonah Tong came into the season as the Mets’ 4th top prospect on Amazin’ Avenue’s 2025 list. The right-hander began the year with Double-A Binghamton and was dominant in ways that we have not seen in many years. Tong made 20 starts for the Rumble Ponies and posted a 1.59 ERA in 102.0 innings, allowing 50 hits, walking 44, and striking out 162. Despite having been promoted to Triple-A Syracuse in mid-August, his 162 strikeouts remained the most in the Eastern League by a wide margin, former teammate Jack Wenninger’s 147 punchouts being second-most in the league. Tong’s time in Syracuse was brief, but the train kept on rolling: in 11.2 innings over 2 starts, the right-hander did not allow a run, giving up 8 hits, walking 3, and striking out 17. To much fanfare and excitement, he was called up to the Mets on August 29 and has claimed a spot in the Mets’ pitching rotation for the rest of the regular season- and perhaps beyond. The results have been a bit lop-sided so far, but along with Nolan McLean and Brandon Sproat, the trio hopefully represent the future.
Additionally, outfielder Elian Peña and left-hander Osiris Calvo were named Dominican Republic Academy Player of the Year and Pitcher of the Year, respectively. Peña, one of the top international rookies this past winter, started the year off with a nine-game hitless streak- those nine games representing 16% of his total season- but when he finally started putting wood on ball, he highlighted why the Mets made him the $5 million dollar man. From June 14 on, when he logged his first hit, Peña batted .342/.463/.618 with 13 doubles, 1 triple, 9 home runs, 18 stolen bases, and 33 walks to 29 strikeouts. All together on the entire season, the outfielder hit .292/.421/.528 with with 13 doubles, 1 triple, 9 home runs, 21 stolen bases in 26 attempts, and 36 walks to 36 strikeouts.
Calvo, who was signed out of the Dominican Republic in 2023 to much less fanfare, made his return to the mound after missing the entire 2024 season due to an injury. The southpaw appeared in 11 games, starting 9, and posted a 2.51 ERA in 43.0 innings, allowing 33 hits, walking 9, and striking out 45. The 21-year-old, who is old for the Dominican Summer League, led both DSL teams in innings pitched and strikeouts and was third among qualified pitchers in ERA.
