The smooth, lefty stroke has aged like fine wine through baseball history. Ben Rice is one of the latest examples of a left-handed hitter whose swing alone makes him fun to watch. Moving through the Yankees’ system as a bat-first catcher, Rice’s explosive minor league performance the last year forced his name into the big league conversation when first baseman Anthony Rizzo landed on the injured list with a fractured arm.
Even before Rizzo went down, Rice was mixing in more time at first base at Triple-A this season. That’s where the organizational need was, and his skills were not quite suited long-term at catcher anyway. As you’d expect, his defense at his new position has been a work in progress, and the same is true for the rest of his game. At the plate, Rice is experiencing the same ups and downs that most rookies do: Pitchers are figuring out how best to attack him, and he is learning how to make adjustments at the big league level.
With a 102 wRC+ over 142 plate appearances, Rice has been formidable thus far, but much of that is due to his hot streak that came along with his call-up. Across his first 19 games, he slashed .267/.348/.567 with five home runs, including the three against the Red Sox on July 6, and a 154 wRC+ over 69 plate appearances. During his 18 games (73 PA) since then, he’s batting .143/.247/.283 with two homers and a 53 wRC+. Despite that recent skid, ZiPS still believes in Rice, giving him a projected 110 wRC+ for the rest of the season. No projections come without uncertainty, of course, but there is a reason why ZiPS – and other projection systems – are confident the under-the-radar prospect can continue to be above average at the plate. Let’s get into it.
Heading into 2023, Rice was a 24-year-old prospect in A-ball. Despite good offensive performances in 2021 and ’22, he wasn’t the type of player many were expecting to rise through four levels over the course of a year, yet that’s exactly what he did. With selective aggression and a knack for creating natural loft in his swing, Rice dominated minor league pitching from the moment the 2023 season started through when he got his major league call-up this June. The great minor league performance is a key reason for his robust projection. He walked a lot, didn’t strike out too much, and hit for power. Even without the gaudy overall production, the bones of that have continued during his seven weeks in the big leagues.
His 84th percentile SEAGER is fantastic for any hitter, let alone a rookie. He attacks hittable pitches at a high clip and has great feel for the strike zone, chasing under 20% of the time. Even though his numbers in the minors suggested his swing decisions were above average, this performance in his first chunk of playing time has reinforced that he can hold it up at this level.
As he’s struggled over his past 18 games, he is still taking his walks (12.3%) and the quality of his plate appearances is still strong. It’s a nice skill to fall back on through ruts like this. The slumps are going to happen, but swing decisions and plate discipline are foundational pieces that can help hitters emerge from rough stretches. Before diving deeper into Rice’s struggles and potential weaknesses, let’s round out the other piece that complements his swing decisions so well: his swing.
Like I said at the beginning of this piece, Rice’s swing has that look to it. It’s low effort, but still good enough to produce pull side lift. It’s a bit steep, but has enough adjustability not to get dominated by high heat. We’re still dealing with a small sample here, but Rice has shown some positive signs in the top third of the strike zone despite his .279 wOBA up there. He doesn’t chase above his hands often and can even get on top of pitches enough to drive them. Here are some swings with a variety of outcomes:
The first thing that sticks out to me is Rice’s base. Throughout each of these swings, whiff or barrel, his feet are securely in the ground. A stable base is step one to having an adjustable swing. In order to create pull side lift on pitches in different parts of the strike zone, your feet have to be secure enough to give your upper body a chance to adjust. On the whiffs, it looks like Rice is just a bit late to get his feet in the ground, causing him to hover further over his back hip and fail to get his bat on an ideal path to make contact. That’ll be something to pay attention to going forward as pitchers look to change his eye level and force him to cover both the top and bottom of the zone.
But as I said, when Rice’s feet are cemented in the ground, he is in a great position to create hard-hit lift. Through 88 batted balls, Rice is running a nearly 40% sweet-spot rate. As a reminder, that number is the percentage of batted balls that are hit between eight and 32 degrees. It’s your best opportunity to hit barrels. Because of this, Rice’s contact quality has been outstanding so far; both his .463 xwOBACON and 19.3% barrel rate would be among the league leaders if he were a qualified hitter. Basically, when Rice has made contact, the outcomes have been favorable. That combined with his selective aggression and unwillingness to leave the strike zone has led to a .375 xwOBA. That’s a big gap from where his .310 wOBA sits, but remember, this is still a small sample and the gap isn’t due to bad luck alone. Rice has really struggled against the slow stuff so far.
Against breaking balls and offspeed pitches, Rice has hit .171 and .125, respectively. The expected numbers don’t look bad (.385 xwOBA and .296 xwOBA) but his performance against righty offspeed pitches and lefty breaking balls is concerning. On a league-wide level, left-handed batters have a .270 wOBA and 29.7% whiff rate against right-handed offspeed pitches. Rice’s wOBA sits at .250 and his whiff rate is extremely high (40.5%). With left-on-left sliders, the whiffs haven’t been as bad in the small sample (21.4%), but he hasn’t managed any good contact against them (.080 wOBA).
From a pitch sequencing perspective, right-handed changeups or splitters and left-handed breaking balls are ideal for neutralizing lefty batters. They’re the perfect pitches to take Rice off the heater. If he doesn’t learn to improve against these pitches, then he is probably going to struggle in the big leagues. I know, it’s pretty simple! Let’s take a look at some of the swings to see what’s going on:
So the big question here: Can Rice be adjustable enough to stop swinging over these pitches? In the first clip, he showed an ability to decelerate and make contact with a low changeup, while in the fourth one, he fouled off a well-located breaking ball. But those are just a two examples. Against both of these pitch-type-handedness combinations, Rice’s outcomes have left much to desire. He is in an adjustment period where pitchers are daring him to prove he can take different swings and read different speeds in the zone.
Despite the poor performances, I don’t think Rice’s swings have looked all that bad after watching every single swing he’s taken against these pitches this year. Evaluating hitting isn’t all visual, but it’s a good sign to see batters stay balanced when they swing instead of getting completely fooled.
Considering Rice’s above-average swing decisions and the fact that it hasn’t been visually concerning, I’m actually bullish on his potential development against these pitches. Plus, the Yankees have started protecting him a bit against lefties with good breaking balls anyway. During the last two weeks, DJ LeMahieu has started at first base over Rice against Cristopher Sánchez, Sean Manaea, and Jose Quintana. Rice has still had opportunities against left-handed relievers from time to time, but manager Aaron Boone seems to be trying to prevent the young hitter from getting exposed in difficult matchups.
In terms of the rest of this season, I’m confident Rice can come through on that 110 ZiPS projection if he keeps up his approach and continues to create the type of damage he has on his batted balls. There are holes are in his profile, but his strengths are compelling and should be enough to hold up his offensive performance, especially against right-handed pitching.
When Rice was on his heater, it was easy to dream that he could be the Yankees’ next great lefty-swinging first baseman for years to come. But in reality, he’s not likely to be a superstar slugger. Instead, the odds are in his favor to be 10-15% better than the average hitter. And in a lineup that already has elite offensive production at the top, that’s all the Yankees need from him. As he works through his struggles, it’ll be crucial to see some sort of adjustment, whether physical or mental, against righty offspeed pitches and lefty breaking balls. However, there is no denying that a hitter with great plate discipline and the natural ability to pull the ball in the air is somebody who can stick around in the big leagues and have success at the plate.
