The Mets had a case for at least one rookie getting love from the players’ side, but the MLBPA’s final ballot left Carson Benge and Nolan McLean on the outside looking in.
Instead of the two New York rookies, the National League finalists for the MLBPA’s Rookie of the Year award were Sal Stewart, JJ Wetherholt and TJ Rumfield. That gave the Mets a double snub in a class that featured plenty of first-year talent.
McLean’s omission is the harder one to untangle. Pitchers always get judged in a different lane, and he came into the mix with nearly enough innings to lose rookie eligibility in 2025.
Still, his work had been strong enough to belong in the conversation, even if he never got much traction as a true candidate. Among qualified NL pitchers, his ERA ranked ninth.
Benge, meanwhile, stacked up more directly with the position players who did make the cut. Stewart brought the traditional power bat.
Wetherholt stood out as the most complete of the group, with defense possibly his best trait, though his .702 OPS was hardly overwhelming. Rumfield was the wild card in the bunch, and a player who may have been underappreciated because he spent the year with the Colorado Rockies, a team that was practically done on Opening Day.
Rumfield still posted a league-leading .390 OBP, and that wasn’t just a Coors Field mirage over 81 games. Stewart also put together a loud season, hitting 32 home runs with 111 RBI while batting .263.
He gave voters the kind of counting stats that jump off the page. Rumfield added a .300 average to his .390 OBP, which only made his case stronger.
If the debate is reduced to fWAR, the rankings tell a different story. Wetherholt led the NL rookie class at 4.6, followed by Benge at 4.3, McLean at 3.5, Rumfield at 2.6 and Stewart at 2.0.
That’s where the tension sits: the first basemen got dinged a bit, while the player at a premium position and the pitcher got a boost from the numbers. But players don’t always vote like front offices or stat models do. More than a few of them are likely to gravitate toward the obvious production, which could explain why Rumfield and Stewart gained enough momentum to crowd out the Mets pair.
So someone was always going to be left disappointed, and this time it was Benge and McLean.
The writers’ Rookie of the Year results will tell their own story soon enough. For now, the Mets rookies may have another target to chase: Benge and McLean were also named Gold Glove finalists alongside Luis Torrens, a possible consolation if they can help end that ongoing drought.
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