Clifford, Reimer, Benge Score High for Advanced Hitting Metrics

By traditional measures, minor leaguers Ryan Clifford, Jacob Reimer and Carson Benge all had excellent seasons at the plate in the Mets organization this year. More advanced data put together by Baseball America and released in an article posted Wednesday confirms that as well.

Baseball America’s RoboScout model uses Statcast metrics and Hawkeye data collected throughout the minors, putting together traditional stats with information like contact quality, swing decisions and exit velocity. The goal is to better predict who will be a good major leaguer.

Baseball America has been using this model for three years and refers to the results as Hit+, which only measures offensive skills (excluding baserunning and defense). The publication listed the best scores by age group from 16 to 23 years old. The Hit+ score is centered at 100 so scores higher than that are above average.

Clifford ranked second on the list for 21-year-olds with a 119 Hit+. (Ranked first was Sal Stewart of the Reds, who was brought up in September and homered off Jonah Tong.) Reimer was seventh in the same age group with a 115.

Clifford, who the Mets acquired in the Justin Verlander trade with Houston in 2023, hit 29 homers, drove in 93 runs and slashed .237/.356/.470 in 579 plate appearances combined between Triple-A Syracuse and Double-A Binghamton. He spent most of the season (105 of 139 games played) at Double-A and most of his time in the field at first base (66 starts). He also started 27 games in left field, 24 in right and 22 at DH.

Reimer, a 2022 fourth-round pick, hit .282/.379/.491 with 17 homers, 77 RBIs and 15 stolen bases combined between High-A Brooklyn and Binghamton. He played exactly 61 games at each level with slash lines that were comparable. He started 84 games at third base, 15 at first and 22 at DH.

Benge, a 2024 first-round pick (19th overall) from Oklahoma State, was eighth on the list of 22-year-olds with a 115 Hit+. He hit .281/.385/.472 with 15 homers, 73 RBIs and 22 stolen bases across three levels, but struggled at his last stop in Syracuse, where he posted a .583 OPS in 24 games. Benge started 63 games in center, 22 in left and and 25 in right.

Benge’s contact rate (80 percent) and in-zone contact rate (86 percent) were tops of the 10 22-year-olds on the Hit+ leaderboard in his age group.

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