{"id":637921,"date":"2026-05-12T05:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T05:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/637921\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T05:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T05:10:12","slug":"mets-to-select-a-j-ewing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/637921\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets To Select A.J. Ewing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mets are calling up top outfield prospect\u00a0A.J. Ewing<\/a>, reports Will Sammon of The Athletic<\/a>. He should make his big league debut tomorrow when the Mets welcome\u00a0Jack Flaherty<\/a> and the Tigers to Citi Field. New York will need to create space on the active and 40-man rosters.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an aggressive promotion the Mets are hoping will spark life into an offense that ranks 29th in scoring. The 21-year-old Ewing opened this season in Double-A. New York just promoted him to Triple-A Syracuse on April 27 and will give him an MLB look after 12 games there.<\/p>\n

Ewing was a fourth-round pick out of high school in the 2023 draft. The Mets selected him with the #134 overall selection, their compensation for losing Jacob deGrom<\/a>, and signed him away from a commitment to Alabama. It turned out to be an excellent find for New York\u2019s scouting department, as Ewing\u2019s plate discipline and athleticism have vaulted him up prospect lists.<\/p>\n

The lefty-hitting Ewing has hit .290 with an on-base percentage close to .400 over parts of four minor league seasons. He\u2019s out to an even better start this year, running a .339\/.447\/.514 line over 132 plate appearances between the top two levels. Ewing has walked nearly 17% of the time against a 15.2% strikeout rate. He\u2019s also 17-18 in stolen base attempts, one year after he swiped 70 bags during his climb from Low-A to Double-A.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There are some parallels with the Mets\u2019 decision to have\u00a0Carson Benge<\/a> break camp after he\u2019d played just 24 Triple-A games. Benge had an ice cold start to his MLB career but has been one of the team\u2019s best hitters over the past couple weeks. He has officially graduated out of prospect status, leaving Ewing as the Mets\u2019 best prospect in Baseball America\u2019s<\/a> most recent update of the league\u2019s Top 100 minor league talents. BA slotted Ewing the #33 prospect in the game. MLB Pipeline<\/a> ranks him 78th overall and second in the system behind right-hander Jonah Tong<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Listed at 6\u20190 and 160 pounds, Ewing doesn\u2019t have immense raw power. He has 15 professional home runs, just five of which have come since the start of the 2025 season. Baseball America and Keith Law of The Athletic<\/a> each wrote over the offseason that Ewing makes more hard contact than the home run total might suggest, though his approach is geared more toward line drives and getting on base than hitting for power.<\/p>\n

Ewing had some strikeout concerns early in his minor league career. He has toned that down considerably over the past year-plus, but he\u2019ll face a much bigger challenge against MLB pitching. There\u2019s no question about his athleticism, though, and Ewing\u2019s plus-plus speed should make him an asset on the bases and give him defensive value.<\/p>\n

Drafted as a second baseman, Ewing moved to the outfield in 2024. He has made four starts at second this year but is primarily a center fielder. He should step into the everyday center field role between Benge and Juan Soto<\/a> for the time being. The Mets placed\u00a0Luis Robert Jr.<\/a> on the injured list in late April with a disc herniation. His return timeline is uncertain. They\u2019ve divided center field between\u00a0Tyrone Taylor<\/a> and Benge \u2014 with\u00a0MJ Melendez<\/a> drawing into the lineup in right field \u2014 since Robert went down.<\/p>\n

Taylor\u2019s glove has made him a favorite of president of baseball operations David Stearns, but he has a .219 OBP through his first 76 plate appearances. Melendez came out of the gates hot but is 3-19 since the calendar flipped to May. He spent most of last year in Triple-A for a Kansas City team that had one of the worst outfields in MLB.<\/p>\n

Melendez and Taylor certainly haven\u2019t been the Mets\u2019 biggest problems, but they\u2019re easy enough to bump out of the lineup. New York\u2019s .287 on-base percentage is the worst in MLB, meaning Ewing would only need to carry over a fraction of his minor league production to be an improvement. If both he and Benge are performing once Robert is back from the injured list, the Mets could give him reps at second base over the scuffling Marcus Semien<\/a> and trade some defense for offense.<\/p>\n

Benge, Melendez,\u00a0Brett Baty<\/a> and\u00a0Francisco Alvarez<\/a> are the only hitters on New York\u2019s MLB roster who have minor league options. It seems safe to assume Benge and Alvarez aren\u2019t getting demoted. Baty isn\u2019t hitting but is the primary third baseman with Francisco Lindor<\/a> and\u00a0Ronny Mauricio<\/a> hurt and Bo Bichette<\/a> needed at shortstop. Melendez has been hitting third against right-handed pitching, itself an indictment of the rest of the lineup. There\u2019s a decent chance the Mets designate someone for assignment tomorrow. Vidal Brujan<\/a>,\u00a0Andy Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez<\/a> and\u00a0Austin Slater<\/a> are all in bench roles.<\/p>\n

Ewing entered the season as a Top 100 prospect at each of BA, MLB Pipeline and ESPN<\/a>. He therefore meets the criteria to win himself a full year of service time if he finishes top two in Rookie of the Year voting. (The Mets cannot receive an extra draft choice because they didn\u2019t call him up by the middle of April.) He\u2019d otherwise fall short of a full service year and be under club control for six seasons beyond this one. He\u2019ll be on track for early arbitration as a Super Two player during the 2028-29 offseason, but future optional assignments to Triple-A could change that trajectory.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Sam Navarro, Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Mets are calling up top outfield prospect\u00a0A.J. Ewing, reports Will Sammon of The Athletic. He should make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[275448,99],"class_list":["post-637921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-a-j-ewing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}