Ben Rice was one of the unluckiest players in Major League Baseball last season, even though he and the organization insist everything was going to plan.
Rice certainly heard his fair share of jeers and boos from a frustrated fanbase. With just a few weeks remaining in spring training, he finally revealed how he handled all of it and the struggles he endured mentally because of it.
“The hardest thing is when results aren’t there, but the process is good,” Rice told Chris Kirschner of The Athletic in February. “It’s really hard to tell yourself to not change anything. You could be squaring the ball up, and it’s going right at guys. You’re not getting hits. Your average is going down. Your OPS is going down. All of this happens and you’re like, should I change? The answer is no, but in your head, you’re like, I’m not getting the results. It’s a mental battle of making sure you’re not changing things.”
Rice’s .271 batting average on balls in play ranked 115th of 145 qualified hitters last season.
This carried over from 2024, when Rice also experienced some struggles offensively. For a young hitter to have such an unlucky start to his big-league career isn’t easy by any means.
Rice is largely known as an offensive-first player for the Yankees. His defense is a work in progress, and as Kirschner noted, is a large part of the reason why the team chose to bring back Paul Goldschmidt. He’s going to primarily be in a mentor role to help mold Rice into the best all-around player he can be.
In his third year of major league action, the coaching staff believes this can be the year Rice puts it all together.
“I think we’re going to see him continue to establish himself as one of the really good, legit middle-of-the-order bats on a really good offense,” manager Aaron Boone told Kirschner.
If the Yankees want the best chance of winning the American League East this season, Rice taking another step forward would certainly help them out.
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