Aaron Boone's confusing Ben Rice usage continues for Yankees

We thought that we were past this. We thought that maybe, just maybe, Aaron Boone had learned to leave well enough alone and let his best players play every day. New York Yankees fans exploded when Boone benched Ben Rice in order to cherry-pick when to get him at-bats in the game, despite Rice being one of the hottest hitters in baseball.

He wanted to pick his spots with Rice. Fans wanted Rice to be used like any other hitter with a wRC+ north of 200 and hit in all of the spots. We thought that Boone had learned his lesson. He let Rice start against a pair of Kansas City Royals lefty starters, Noah Cameron and Cole Ragans, and Rice took them both deep.

Boone seemed to come to his senses. After April 18's matchup with the Royals, when Rice took Cameron deep, Boone said, “He’s solidified himself as one of the really outstanding hitters in the league, no matter what hand you throw with.”

However, when he got the follow-up question as to whether or not that meant no more benchings against southpaws, Boone responded, "Um, I think he’s a great hitter….I’ll pick my spots where it will make sense.”

Still, when the series against the Boston Red Sox began on April 21, Boone penciled Rice into the No. 3 spot in the lineup despite young Red Sox left-hander Connelly Early taking the bump. Rice would go 0-4 with 4 Ks. After the game, Pedro Martinez would name Rice as Aaron Judge's top challenger for the 2026 AL MVP, which, besides the odd timing, isn't a crazy take.

Boone was less impressed and didn't start Rice for the second game of the series against big-ticket southpaw Ranger Suárez.

Aaron Boone's issues managing the Yankees' lineup go deeper than his handling of Ben Rice

Ostensibly, the point of sitting Rice is to improve against left-handed pitching. The prime beneficiary of the budding star riding the pine is 38-year-old Paul Goldschmidt. Getting the right-handed hitting veteran in the lineup against a lefty makes sense in principle, but the data doesn't back that up.

Entering the action on April 22, Rice had posted a 1.167 OPS against lefties, while Goldschmidt had managed just a .654 mark. The sample size is small, and is contradictory to what each has done during their respective careers, but there's some important context that must be considered.

Goldschmidt is no longer the MVP-level player he used to be. He's firmly on the decline. Considering his numbers from five-plus years ago doesn't make any sense, considering he's nowhere close to the player he is today. Meanwhile, Rice is an ascending player, making his past performance not entirely relevant to what he's doing today.

To make matters worse is how Boone chose to deploy Rice when he called on him to pinch hit. When Boston turned to righty Zack Kelly out of the pen in the top of the sixth, Boone called upon Rice to pinch hit for the red-hot Amed Rosario. Rosario has hit all comers so far this year, posting an .899 OPS against lefties and an .866 mark against righties. He'd also done all of the damage in the game, with a three-run homer in the first and another run driven in with a sac fly in the third.

It makes little sense to remove a hitter on such a hot streak, even if the handedness matchup isn't in his favor. That wasn't all. Boone continued to sub out right-handed bats for left-handed ones, pinch-hitting Trent Grisham for Randal Grichuk immediately after removing Rosario from the game.

The problem there is that Boston has five lefties, including Aroldis Chapman, in their bullpen. Two of them are rookies, making them even more susceptible to strong right-handed bats. Therefore, if the idea was to take advantage of the matchups, emptying the bench with a 4-0 lead in the sixth didn't jive with the strategy of playing Goldschmidt over Rice to begin the game.

Even if Boone insists that Goldschmidt must be in the lineup against lefties, there is an alternative to get both his bat and Rice's in the game at the same time. Speaking with A.J. Pierzynski on Foul Territory prior to the game, Boone stated that Rice "hits lefties." Pierzynski then asked about Rice catching, something he has yet to do this season, to which Boone replied that he feels hesitant to do that since Rice was "overworked" handling both catching and first base duties in spring training.

Of course, if the matchups are what matter most, getting lefty-hitting Austin Wells and his .353 OPS against same-handed pitching out of the lineup in favor of a guy who has been tearing the cover off the ball all season makes a ton of sense.

The most infuriating thing about all of this isn't even the fact that Boone is sitting Rice against some lefties. It's fine if he believes a particular matchup isn't a good one for Rice, or wants to get him off of his feet for a bit. The real issue is that the rest of the moves he makes are inconsistent with him stating he's trying to maximize Rice's spots, because if that were true, he'd be doing the same for Rosario and trying to get Wells out of the lineup.

Boone is overthinking things, which should come as no surprise. Eventually, it will start costing the Yankees victories.

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