Scouting Travis Sykora, Carson Benge and other Mets and Nationals prospects

New York Times

10-06-2025

The Nationals' top pitching prospect, right-hander Travis Sykora, started the 2025 season on the injured list as he recovered from offseason surgery to repair his hip labrum and only made his season debut in the Florida Complex League on May 3. He's made three starts at High A, which is where he would have started the year had he been ready to go, and has 22 strikeouts against just two walks in 13 innings at the level. I saw his most recent start and home debut for Wilmington on Friday, when he faced the best lineup in the Sally League at the moment in the Brooklyn Cyclones.
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For three innings, he was Travis Cy-kora, going nine for nine through the Brooklyn lineup, striking out five and inducing three weak groundballs and one lineout. He was 95-98 with a plus splitter and above-average slider at 84-86, working to both sides of the plate and throwing strikes with everything, along with a slower breaking ball at 80-82.
It's a deceptive look, as the ball appears very late and he has a lot of funk in the delivery that may throw hitters off. The second time through the order, hitters seemed to pick up the ball a little better, and they put the ball in play more often, with three hits and just two strikeouts as Sykora faced exactly 18 batters on the night. He finished the start with five innings pitched and two runs allowed, with no walks and seven strikeouts.
His stuff tapered slightly the second time through the order, although he still ran it up to 97, just sitting more in the 95 range than he had earlier, with the splitter and slider also marginally worse. This was his longest outing by innings or batters faced since his hip surgery, although his 62 pitches were in line with his previous two starts (64 and 60).
Sykora's delivery, however, is pretty rough once he starts moving forward off the rubber, so in a way it's impressive he throws strikes as often as he does. He starts out fine, with a very high leg kick (which, if nothing else, I find aesthetically pleasing because I'm old) and a modest shoulder tilt backward for leverage. After that, however, his arm is super late relative to his landing leg, with a high elbow in back and an abrupt finish from a shorter stride than you'd expect from his height. If you showed me the delivery from the side and told me nothing else, I would guess he didn't have an average breaking ball and probably had issues with walks. Neither of those is true, so maybe in the end the delivery won't matter if he stays healthy, but there just aren't many big-league starters with his mechanics.
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When I saw Carson Benge in April, he was struggling at the plate and having trouble with his front side, completely rolling over his front foot so that I could see the entire sole of his cleat when I was sitting up the side of the batter's box. He was still doing that in mid-May, but when I saw him Friday, he'd reduced it somewhat, still rolling his heel but not coming totally apart the way he had in April.
He's been on a tear for the last few weeks; since the Cyclones played a series in the hitter's haven of Asheville, he's hit .303/.432/.526 with almost as many walks (15) as strikeouts (17). He's also been hitting far more line drives after being very groundball-heavy in the early going, although his strong exit velocities are showing up more in his BABIP than in over-the-fence power. It's all good news, with the hope the Mets can get him to lift the ball just a little bit more so he can put more balls in the seats.
Second baseman A.J. Ewing had a mediocre first full year in pro ball in 2024, but after going back to the all-fields approach he showed in high school, he returned to Low A to start 2025 and hit .400/.506/.615 in 18 games. The Mets bumped him up to Brooklyn, and he's at .321/.400/.435 so far at the higher level, with a strikeout rate of just 19 percent. He didn't love facing Sykora, with a pair of strikeouts and a broken-bat groundout, but smoked a double off a right-handed reliever (Austin Amaral) with a great swing where he stayed back well and got his lower half into it, driving the pitch to right-center. He then stole third with two outs and Benge up, which I didn't love — you never want to make the third out at third base, especially not with your best hitter at the plate and your team down six.
Brooklyn right-hander Will Watson pitched in relief, as Sean Manaea made a rehab start and couldn't finish the second inning. (Manaea sat 90-91 and everything looked flat, but he also didn't seem to be going full bore on any of his pitches.) Watson was 95-97 with an above-average changeup, a slider, and a cutter, and hitters hit him hard, especially the fastball. There's no deception at all to the delivery — he's got the ball up and visible in back of him for almost the whole delivery — and the breaking stuff was mostly below-average. The slider might work as a chase pitch when he sweeps it hard toward the left-handed batter's box, but that's about it.
The Nats recently promoted their 2024 eighth-round pick, outfielder Sam Petersen, to Wilmington, and he got his first at-bat and first hit at the level Friday.
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The University of Iowa product, who started the year on the IL, has good bat speed and showed he could stay back on breaking stuff, ending up with three hits in five at-bats on the night, although his last one ended in a strikeout as he whiffed on 95 and 96 up from right-handed reliever Jace Beck. He runs well and looked solid enough in center to see a potential fourth outfielder here, although I don't think he's going to have the power or impact to be more.
(Top photo of Travis Sykora: Jared Blais / MLB Photos via Getty Images)