Every now and then last season, Ben Rice would pay a visit to his Baseball Savant page.<\/p>\n
\u201cEspecially when things were, in terms of luck, not really going my way,\u201d Rice said Tuesday. \u201cI would just check on it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
What the Yankees first baseman would find was a lot of red, meaning most of his underlying metrics \u2014 like average exit velocity, hard-hit rate and expected batting average and slugging percentage \u2014 were among the higher percentiles in the majors.<\/p>\n
Of course, that reassurance only went so far when he was not consistently getting the surface-level numbers that his batted-ball data suggested he should be \u2014 which placed him among the best hitters in the game, like having the seventh-best hard-hit rate (56.1 percent, tied with Rafael Devers and just ahead of Juan Soto) and boasting the ninth-best average exit velocity (93.3 mph, between Devers and Bobby Witt Jr.).<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you can only put so much stock into it, because the reality is the actual performance was not on par with the best players in the league,\u201d Rice said before the Yankees opened a series against the A\u2019s. \u201cIt was solid last year, but it wasn\u2019t what the process stuff said it should be or could be or would be. In my eyes, it\u2019s a performance-driven sport. It\u2019s like, let\u2019s keep finding ways to get better. Of course the process looks good, but how can we make it even better? How can we make it so you can get more power, more hits, more walks, fewer strikeouts?\u201d<\/p>\n
At least early on this season, the process numbers have lined up with the performance numbers, giving the lefty slugger a chance to end up among the game\u2019s best in both areas.<\/p>\n
![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/celebrates-new-york-yankees-right-125081032.jpg\")
New York Yankees first baseman Ben Rice (22) celebrates with New York Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge (99) after he scores on his three-run homer during the first inning when the New York Yankees played the Miami Marlins on April 5, 2026 at Yankee Stadium. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n
Rice entered Tuesday batting .370 with an MLB-best 1.380 OPS, four doubles and three home runs. He was averaging an exit velocity of 97.6 mph, which was the second-highest mark among qualified hitters, with a league-leading 77.8 percent hard-hit rate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good,\u201d Rice said before offering the usual caution that comes with this time of year. \u201cIt\u2019s so early. We always say we\u2019ll evaluate at the end of the year. There\u2019s no point in evaluating it now.\u201d<\/p>\n
But everything has been encouraging in terms of Rice looking like he is set to take another step up as the middle-of-the-order bat the Yankees believe he can be \u2014 including the fact that he has walked in nine of his 36 plate appearances.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think just the consistency of the at-bats every single day and the patience right out of the gate [has stood out],\u201d manager Aaron Boone said. \u201cThat\u2019s probably the biggest thing I\u2019ve liked about our offense so far, is the patience, especially this time of year. Guys want to get going, or guys that are off to a little bit of a slow start, you want to get those hits, you start chasing that and then you play into the hands of the pitcher. \u2026 Benny\u2019s been really, really good at controlling the strike zone and then when you come in there, he can really hurt you.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Rice\u2019s first full season in the big leagues last year, he hit .255 with 26 home runs and a .836 OPS, which ranked 27th among qualified hitters. And yet the Yankees believed he was even better than those numbers indicated because he was hitting into a fair amount of bad luck.<\/p>\n
![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/22-hits-three-run-homer-125080816.jpg\")
Yankees first baseman Ben Rice (22) hits a three-run homer during the first inning when the New York Yankees played the Miami Marlins on Sunday, April 5, 2026. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGo beyond the box score with the Bombers\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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Rice found some validation in those underlying metrics \u2014 after coming up through a minor league system in which he was evaluated on those \u201cprocess-oriented\u201d numbers like hitting the ball hard, he said \u2014 but it also helps to see the ball find grass, or a seat.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always a hole over the fence, so,\u201d Rice said with a grin.<\/p>\n
In the small sample size of the early season, Rice was also pulling the ball at a 50 percent clip \u2014 notably higher than his 37.7 percent mark last season. But he said that was not by design.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never try to do that,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I do that, I\u2019m screwed. That\u2019s something that I do naturally. I work more on, at least in my practice, in staying through the middle of the field, because I know in the game, I speed up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every now and then last season, Ben Rice would pay a visit to his Baseball Savant page. \u201cEspecially…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2376],"tags":[5,731,4,1690,62,2548,2547,185,142],"class_list":{"0":"post-669376","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-yankees","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-ben-rice","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-yankees","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkyankees","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-yankees"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116366484961165066","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}