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Yankees fans should believe Ben Rice's breakout is for real this season
Yankees fans should believe Ben Rice's breakout is for real this season originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
While the Major League Baseball season is only just underway, some clear storylines are forming for the year.
For the New York Yankees, the biggest storyline is the breakout of Ben Rice. He was already great last season, but he's taking his play to a new level in 2026.
Amid such a breakout, MLB.com's Bryan Hoch is calling for Yankees fans to believe this breakout is for real, and that Rice is a future All-Star, and a lefty-hitting counterpart to Aaron Judge on the right side of the plate.
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Ben Rice Is Laying Waste to the American League
Coming into the season, the ZiPS projections generally saw the Yankees as having lower divisional odds than standings based on other projection systems and methodologies. One of the biggest reasons for that was, paradoxically, one of the best things a baseball team can possess: Aaron Judge with a signed contract. Since ZiPS attempts to simulate the effects of injuries, including season-ending ones, the Yankees offense took an absolutely brutal hit any time Judge was absent. In the system’s current season simulations, that effect has been mitigated somewhat by the improved projections of one man: first baseman Ben Rice.
Judge’s courtroom is a terrifying dystopia in which defendant pitchers find scant justice and almost sure punishment. And while this judge is typically content to handle executions himself, it’s Rice who has been operating the guillotine the most frequently in 2026. Through the first three weeks of the season, Rice has put up a .362/.500/.745 line, good for a league-leading 241 wRC+, and has already hit the 1-WAR mark.
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