While it has lagged their improvement in minor league pitching development in recent years, the position player side of the Mets’ organization really bloomed in 2025. Multiple huge years, including huge years from
top prospects and somewhat unheralded breakouts, now have the organization in a great spot on both sides of the ball.
That leaves us with several great candidates for 2025 minor league player of the year, but there can only be one.
OF Carson Benge
How acquired:
2024 Draft, Round 1, Pick 19 – $3,997,500 signing bonus
College – Oklahoma State
2025 Stats
.281/.385/.472 (150 wRC+) w/ 15 HR and 22 SB in 116 G / 519 PA
The Mets’ first round draft pick in 2024, Benge was regarded as a centerfield with both solid hit and power projections, but one who needed a swing change to get there. It became quickly obvious post-draft that he had actually already made the swing change and was in fact one of the best players selected in 2024, and that continued in 2025. The 22-year-old blitzed across three levels of the minors, starting in High-A Brooklyn and finishing the year with Triple-A Syracuse. He consistently demonstrated strong bat-to-ball skills (17.7% K%), good plate discipline, and burgeoning power output, even if he doesn’t necessarily pull and lift the ball as often as he could. His stats are also muted by some late season scuffles in Triple-A which were both injury-related (nothing major) and largely still batted ball noise.
Benge checked in at 31 on Baseball America’s latest top-100, 59 on Fangraph’s end-of-season update, and 32 on Baseball Prospectus’s midseason top-50. All of these ranks are likely a touch low at this point just due to the cadence of list cycles, and I’d expect Benge to rank in the top-20 of at least one and possibly multiple outlets this offseason. If you did a 2024 redraft, he’s likely going top-5 at this point, and will also be in contention for the Mets’ opening-day centerfield job in Spring Training. Look for him to seize control of that spot at some point in 2026.
2B/OF A.J. Ewing
How acquired:
2023 Draft, Round 4C, Pick 3- $675,000 signing bonus
High School – Springboro HS
2025 Stats
.315/.401/.429 (147wRC+) w/ 3 HR and 70 SB in 124 G / 564 PA
Given his standing at the start of the season, Ewing is the Mets’ biggest 2025 riser. After an unremarkable 2024, Ewing dominated across three levels, posting a 202 wRC+ in Single-A St. Lucie, a 140 wRC+ in High-A Brooklyn, and finally a 133 wRC+ in Double-A Binghamton. He did all of this while leaning a new positioning, moving out to centerfield after being drafted as an infielder and playing there early in his career. We don’t have publicly available batted ball data for High-A or Double-A unfortunately, but what Ewing showed in at St. Lucie early in the year was quite impressive, displaying high-end contact skills, above average approach, and good damage characteristics.
Ewing still has refinements to make to his game, most notably in the power department. His exceptional 2025 line was buoyed by a .392 BABIP, evident of how hard he hits the ball but also not sustainable at higher levels. He’ll need to learn to lift the ball more and add strength to complement his athleticism and hitting ability but seems well on his way to being an impactful major league. He’ll likely feature prominently across all major top-100 lists this offseason.
1B/3B Jacob Reimer
How acquired:
2022 Draft, Round 4, Pick 13 – $775,000 signing bonus
High School – Yucaipa HS
2025 Stats
.282/.379/.491 (157wRC+) w/ 17 HR and 15 SB in 122 G / 522 PA
Reimer was a long time favorite of the AA prospect team, but we gave up on him a bit prior to 2025; it seemed like he’d never be healthy enough or hit the ball with enough authority to be a real prospect given the defensive limitations as a 1B/3B type.
Well, that was a mistake. Reimer both stayed on the field and impacted the ball more than he ever has in his career, all while maintaining the standout plate discipline and underlying feel for contact that made us like him in the first place. His .209 ISO nearly double his previous career high, and he showed very little drop in performance moving up from Brooklyn to Binghamton (though the extra swing and miss is notable).
There’s going to be continued pressure on Reimer’s bat given that he’s an at-best-okay 3B or a very undersized 1B (listed at 6’0”) who lacks footspeed to play the outfield. Hitting like this will make that work, however, and he’ll have a shot to consolidate these gains in the upper minors in 2026. Similar to Ewing, he should appear on multiple top-100 lists this offseason.
1B/OF Ryan Clifford
How acquired:
2022 Draft, Round 11, Pick 27 – $1,256,530 signing bonus (acquired for Justin Verlander in 2023)
High School – Crossroads FLEX HS
2025 Stats
.237/.356/.470(136 wRC+) w/ 29 HR and 7 SB in 139 G / 579 PA
Not including Jett Williams might be a bit of a slight, but in my opinion Clifford had the more impressive season relative to his starting position. Since coming over from Houston in the 2023 Justin Verlander trade, Clifford’s contact skills had regressed, and he ran a strikeout rate of 28.9% or more across all levels between that point and the end of the 2024 season. But in 2025, Clifford reined in the Ks, striking out in a much more manageable 25.6% of his PA. Yes that’s still high, and yes this might just be noise, but on paper it’s a real improvement, and it allowed Clifford to slug nearly thirty homers across two levels. He finished out his season with a league-average line over 34 G in Triple-A as a 21-year-old.
Taking a peak at the Triple-A data, we actually see some very promising signs. Unsurprisingly, he demonstrated high-end damage and 90th percentile EVs (107.4 MPH). He also posted an 83 SEAGER, in large part by reining in his previously-problematic passivity and swinging at more hittable pitches without chasing more. Most importantly, Clifford also demonstrated above average in-zone contact, which would be a very notable change.
Clifford is knocking on the door of the major leagues at this point and could be the primary 1B in short order, someone in the Lucas Duda mold (who was Good). Dude was of course a much better hitter in the minors, but also did that as an older draftee. Balance that how you will.
