A.J. Ewing

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

It’s an aggressive promotion the Mets are hoping will spark life into an offense that ranks 29th in MLB 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 now give him an MLB look after 12 games at the top minor league level.

Ewing was a fourth-round pick out of high school in the 2023 draft. The Mets selected him with the #134 overall pick, their compensation for losing Jacob deGrom in free agency, and signed him away from a commitment to Alabama with a $675K bonus. It turned out to be an excellent move for New York’s scouting department, as Ewing’s plate discipline and athleticism has vaulted him up prospect lists.

The lefty-hitting Ewing has hit .290 with an on-base percentage close to .400 over parts of four minor league seasons. He’s out to an even better start than that 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’s also 17-18 in stolen base attempts, one year after he swiped 70 bags during his climb from Low-A to Double-A.

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

Listed at 6’0 and 160 pounds, Ewing doesn’t 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 each wrote over the offseason that Ewing makes more hard contact than the home run total might suggest on the surface, though his approach is geared more toward line drives and getting on base than hitting for power.

Ewing had some strikeout concerns early in his minor league career. He has toned that down considerably over the past year-plus, but he’ll obviously be facing a much bigger challenge against MLB pitching. There’s no question about his athleticism, though, and Ewing’s plus-plus speed should make him an asset on the bases and give him defensive value.

Drafted as a second baseman, Ewing moved primarily 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 for the time being. The Mets placed Luis Robert Jr. on the injured list in late April with a disc herniation. His return timeline is uncertain. They’ve divided center field between Tyrone Taylor and Benge — with MJ Melendez drawing into the lineup in right field — since Robert went down.

More to come.