Carson Benge Finished Second for NL Rookie of the Year. The Voters Got It Wrong.

I stayed up for it Monday night, and I am still a little annoyed this morning. Sal Stewart of the Reds is your 2026 National League Rookie of the Year, and our guy Carson Benge finished second. It was not close on the ballot: Stewart got 20 of the 30 first-place votes and 170 points, and Benge got 7 first-place votes and 107 points. I respect the voters. I also think they got this one wrong, and I want to walk through why.

What Benge actually did

Benge was not some September call-up who got hot for three weeks. He was in right field on Opening Day, homered in his very first big league game against the Pirates on March 26, and never gave the job back. Over 156 games he hit .282 with a .346 on-base percentage, 20 home runs, 65 RBI, 86 runs and 22 stolen bases.

Some of the milestones he hit along the way:

• First Mets rookie ever to go 20-20. He got there with his 20th homer on September 25. Only 18 rookies in MLB history have done it.

• A new Mets rookie hits record. His 156th hit on September 19 passed Pete Alonso.

• 4.3 bWAR, second among all NL rookies behind JJ Wetherholt of the Cardinals.

• 10 outfield assists, the most in the majors, plus a Gold Glove finalist nod in right field.

That is a complete player. He hit, he ran, he defended and he threw people out. On a team that lost 88 games, he was one of the few things that worked from the first week to the last.

Why the voters went with Stewart

To be fair to Stewart, his season was loud. He played in all 162 games, hit 32 home runs and drove in 112. Only 15 rookies have ever put up 30 homers and 100 RBI, and the last eight to do it all won this award, a list that includes Alonso, Aaron Judge, Albert Pujols and Mike Piazza. When a voter sees that line, history says they check the box.

Here is my problem with it. Stewart hit .263 with a .787 OPS, which is barely above Benge's .776, and Baseball Reference has him at 1.8 WAR for the season. Benge was worth more than twice that. The gap comes from everything that does not show up in the home run and RBI columns: Benge played a premium defensive position at a high level, stole 22 bases and kept runners from taking the extra base all year. Stewart mostly played first base. RBI also depend a lot on the guys hitting in front of you, and that is not a knock on Stewart, it is just how the stat works.

If you want one award for the rookie who did the most to help his team win, I think the numbers point to Benge. The voters went with the bigger power totals, and they have been doing that for a long time.

What he would have joined

A win would have put Benge on a short list. The Mets have had six Rookies of the Year: Tom Seaver in 1967, Jon Matlack in 1972, Darryl Strawberry in 1983, Dwight Gooden in 1984, Jacob deGrom in 2014 and Pete Alonso in 2019. He would have been the first Mets outfielder to win it since Strawberry, and the first player drafted under David Stearns to take home a BBWAA award. The Mets took him 19th overall out of Oklahoma State in 2024, where he was a two-way guy, and he went from draft day to Opening Day right fielder in less than two years. That is a scouting and development win either way.

The bright side for Mets fans

It was not only Benge. Nolan McLean finished fourth with 70 points, and A.J. Ewing picked up a fifth-place vote. Three Mets rookies got votes in the same year. Whatever you think about how 2026 went, that is a real young core, and the front office should be building around it this winter.

And for Benge himself, I would not worry. Second place in the Rookie of the Year vote does not mean much once the season starts. What I care about is that we have a 23-year-old right fielder who can hit near the top of the order, run, and throw out anybody who tests him, and he is ours for a long time.

The fan take

Robbed? I will not go that far, because Stewart had a great year and 30-100 seasons always win. But if you watched this team every night, you know who the best all-around rookie in the National League was. Carson, use it. Come back in March with a chip on your shoulder and make them remember the name. Let's go Mets.