 Drafted by the Reds in the 2nd round of the 1987 MLB amateur draft, Benavides made his Major League Baseball debut with Cincinnati on May 14, 1991.Benavides was then a member of the inaugural Colorado Rockies team, which began play in Major League Baseball in 1993, after which he was traded to the Montreal Expos, where he played his final big league game on August 11, 1994.During the 2007 season he spent time as interim manager of the Cincinnati Reds Rookie-Advanced farm club, the Billings Mustangs.