Ben Rice Is Cooking

Signs of Sustainability

Can Ben Rice keep this up? No, of course not. Over the past two decades, only one hitter has maintained a 200 wRC+ over a full season, and his name is Aaron Judge. Ben Rice is not Aaron Judge.

Almost any major league hitter can get this hot over a short stretch. Kyren Paris, Geraldo Perdomo, and Carson Kelly all rank among the top 10 MLB players in fWAR right now.

Heck, Rice himself is no stranger to unsustainable hot streaks. Over his first 60 plate appearances in 2024, he hit .294 with four home runs and a 171 wRC+. From that point to the end of the season, he only hit three home runs in almost twice as many trips to the plate. His wRC+ was 23.

So, “Can Ben Rice keep this up?” isn’t really the right question to ask. The more productive question is this: Is Rice showing signs that he will remain a productive hitter over a longer period?

It’s still early, but I think the answer might be yes.

Quality of Contact

The underlying numbers are just as impressive as the surface-level data. Rice ranks among the league leaders in every hard-contact metric you can think of, including average exit velocity, hard-hit rate, and EV50.

Moreover, his launch angle sweet-spot percentage (38.9%) ranks in the 74th percentile, while his squared-up rate (28.9%) ranks in the 75th percentile. He’s hitting the ball well.

It certainly helps that he knows how to swing at good pitches. Rice has always been good at drawing walks and avoiding pitches outside the strike zone. This year, only one qualified AL batter (Alex Bregman) has a lower chase rate, according to Baseball Savant.

If I wanted to nitpick, I could argue that Rice has been too passive at the plate. In order to avoid chasing, he’s passing up opportunities to swing at hittable pitches. But that only means Rice could be even better if he took the bat off his shoulders more often.

Tangible Changes

Much like batting average, OPS, and wRC+, underlying metrics are also susceptible to small sample size weirdness. It takes more than a handful of games for stats like hard-hit rate and squared-up rate to stabilize.

However, a sudden improvement in quality of contact is easier to buy into when there are clear, measurable changes that could explain where the improvement is coming from.

Rice’s average bat speed in 2025 is 3.3 mph faster than it was last season, bringing him up from the 42nd percentile to the 89th.

Last year, only 43 of his swings were clocked at 75 mph or faster. That’s the speed threshold Statcast uses to define a “fast swing.” So far in 2025, 41 of his hacks have been so-called “fast swings.” In other words, he has taken almost as many fast swings in roughly one-third of the plate appearances.

It’s also worth noting that Rice is using a new, wider stance this year, and his average point of contact is further out in front of the plate. That’s likely what is helping him pull the baseball so much more often.

In 2024, he pulled just 20.8% of his fly balls (per FanGraphs). So far in 2025, more than half of his fly balls have been pulled (53.8%). That’s an excellent development. Four of his five home runs and five of his seven extra-base hits have come on pulled fly balls.

Platoon Splits

One worry the Yankees had about Rice entering the season was his inability to hit same-handed pitching. That’s not so huge of a problem for a left-handed batter, because he can face righties in the majority of his plate appearances, but still, it was a valid concern.

Rice performed much worse against lefties than righties in his rookie season, and it was a similar story throughout his minor league career:

Ben Rice Career Platoon Splits (All Levels)

So far in 2025, Rice has held his own against southpaws. Indeed, two of his five home runs have come off left-handers.

Even better, his .182 BABIP against lefties and the wide gap between his wOBA (.319) and xwOBA (.386) indicate that he deserves better results than he has had. The sample size becomes really small once we start looking at splits, but Rice’s numbers against lefties bode well for his future success.

Ben Rice Is Earning an Everyday Role

Rice has work to do to prove himself, but there’s a lot to like – and very little not to like – about what we’ve seen so far.

If I were being completely pragmatic, I’d have to admit that the chances of Rice fizzling out are still greater than the chances of him becoming a true middle-of-the-order threat. His profile comes with real concerns, and those concerns, which kept him from ever being a top-top prospect, loom larger than his success in a 15-game sample.

That said, I’m a lot more optimistic about Rice than I was when the season began. I’m sure the Yankees are too. On Opening Day, he seemed like a stopgap at DH. But he’s making a strong case to be an everyday player.

That raises a big question: If Rice keeps hitting, what will the Yankees do once Giancarlo Stanton returns? Rice has been New York’s designated hitter. But that’s the only position Stanton can play.

Rice can also play first base, but another former MVP, Paul Goldschmidt, has that job covered.

Meanwhile, it remains unclear if the Yankees want Rice to catch at all. They seem to like J.C. Escarra as the backup to Austin Wells, and Rice has not caught at all this season. Even if he did see time behind the dish this year, it wouldn’t be more than a once-or-twice-a-week job.

Perhaps the Yankees could stick Rice in an outfield corner? He doesn’t have any professional experience playing the outfield, but as long as he’s hitting well enough, no one is going to care about his defense.

Yet, putting Rice in the outfield would mean taking playing time away from Judge, Cody Bellinger, or Jasson Domínguez. That doesn’t seem likely to happen.

If Aaron Boone is willing to get creative, the skipper could probably find five starts a week for Rice between DH, first base, catcher, and the outfield, but that would be asking a lot of Rice defensively. And the more he has to focus on his defense, the less time and mental energy he’ll have to devote to his offense.

So, where does that leave us? The only good answer is that the Yankees will cross this bridge when they come to it. Plenty can change over the next few weeks to make this problem not so much of a problem – and ultimately, it’s a good problem to have.

For now, however, Rice will get to keep the job he has earned: leading off as New York’s primary DH.