Ben Rice gave the Yankees everything his bat could offer in 2026. The problem is that October ended with the club still staring at the same issue that followed him through the year: where exactly does he fit?
Rice went deep twice on Oct. 5 at Tropicana Field, one shot off Freddy Peralta in the fourth inning and another against left-hander Ian Seymour in the eighth. New York still lost, 5-2, in Game 2 of the American League Division Series.
Four Yankees errors helped swing that one. Two nights later, the season was over after a 4-3 loss at Yankee Stadium completed a three-game sweep by the Tampa Bay Rays.
Rice finished that postseason on a tear, batting .421 with four homers and a 1.605 OPS in five games. Even that wasn’t enough to change the larger conversation hanging over the Yankees’ offseason.
His bat has already announced itself. His glove is what keeps complicating the plan.
The offensive breakout was real and loud. Rice hit .264 with a .363 on-base percentage and a .534 slugging percentage across 154 games, piling up 41 home runs, 97 RBIs, 105 runs and 85 walks for an .897 OPS. Among qualified Yankees hitters, he led the team in homers, RBIs, runs, walks, on-base percentage and slugging, according to Bleacher Report’s late-September tally.
That production mattered even more because Aaron Judge was limited to 66 regular-season games after a fractured rib and a late calf strain, then missed the ALDS altogether. Rice stepped into the middle of the lineup and became a central part of what the Yankees had.
The climb to that level has been steep. As a rookie in 2024, Rice hit seven homers with a .613 OPS. He followed that with 26 home runs and an .836 OPS in 2025 before exploding to 41 this past season.
There’s another number that adds to the intrigue: Tino Martinez’s 44 homers in 1997 remain the most by a Yankees first baseman since Lou Gehrig, Fox Sports noted in June. Rice finished just three short of that mark. The catch is that most of those at-bats came away from first base.
That’s where the issue lives. When Rice played first, the defensive metrics painted an ugly picture. He logged 474 2/3 innings there across 56 games and made four errors for a .991 fielding percentage, but the advanced numbers were far less forgiving.
Brendan Kuty of The Athletic pointed to the problem in his offseason review of the Yankees’ biggest questions. “Despite how good Rice has proved to be as a hitter (41 home runs, .897 OPS), he was bad defensively at first last season,” Kuty wrote.
Kuty also compared Rice with every first baseman who logged at least 300 innings at the position in 2026. “Of the 43 players who played 300 innings at the position, Rice ranked second to last in DRS at minus-8. Only the Seattle Mariners’ Josh Naylor was worse at minus-9,” Kuty wrote.
The Yankees did try to manage that by splitting first base with Paul Goldschmidt, the four-time Gold Glove winner who turned 39 in September. But that arrangement did not erase the defensive concerns.
Most of Rice’s 154 games came somewhere other than first base, largely at designated hitter. That’s the part that creates the squeeze now.
Full-time DH would solve one problem and open another, because the Yankees already have other bats that may need that spot. Judge is the obvious candidate for more DH time given the injuries he just dealt with, and Giancarlo Stanton remains under contract through 2027.
Luis García Jr. adds yet another wrinkle, since he also profiles best away from the field. He started his career at second base with the Washington Nationals and graded among the weakest defenders in the sport there.
Back last winter, Aaron Boone said on “The Michael Kay Show” that he expected Rice to be the everyday first baseman. That’s not how the season played out. Goldschmidt often started against left-handed pitching, and Rice spent most of his nights at DH.
For now, Rice remains a core piece and is expected to anchor the Yankees’ 2027 lineup. But the next step is obvious enough. The organization needs more from his range, his positioning and his work receiving throws at first base.
If that comes, the Yankees can move Judge around more freely and build a cleaner everyday lineup. If it doesn’t, they’ll have to decide how much defense they’re willing to sacrifice for 41 home runs.
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