Why are the Yankees putting Ben Rice in a precarious situation with his development?

Ben Rice is legitimately one of the best hitters in MLB this year. He has emerged as an MVP candidate even during Aaron Judge's absence and figures to be one of the key pieces to the next era of Yankees baseball.

And yet ... there seems to be a bit of a disconnect. The Yankees famously care very little about defense. They've played countless guys out of position over the last few years. They still trot cement-shoes Trent Grisham out in center field every day. Amed Rosario is the backup third baseman. We don't need to give you more of a history lesson here.

But for whatever reason, the Yankees have all of a sudden taken a stance with improving the defensive situation at first base. Rice went into the season as the starter and he began to lose reps when Paul Goldschmidt started receiving more playing time because of injuries. And then the Yankees acquired another first baseman at the trade deadline in Luis García Jr., who has exclusively played the position during his first five games with the team.

As a result, Rice has recently surpassed his games played total at first base (52) after recording his 57th appearance at DH. Ben Rice, a 27-year-old athlete, should not be a designated hitter. Not when this team still employs Giancarlo Stanton and Paul Goldschmidt. Not when Aaron Judge is going to return and need ample DH reps due to the nature of his rib injury.

What'll be the option then? Thrust Rice back in the first base job after playing just eight games there over the last six weeks? Have him lose playing time to a platoon player in García Jr.? Both sound terrible.

For one, Rice should never be losing playing time. He's the second-most lethal hitter on the Yankees and it's not even a discussion. Secondly, giving him more defensive reps down the stretch and into the postseason after depriving him of the necessary experience to be prepared for those moments seems like a horrible idea. That's when the indecision and errors occur. And they will happen at the worst possible times. Unless he is injured, there is no reason he should have seen just seven games at first throughout the entire month of July.

And lastly, we have the splits:

Offense at 1B - .270/.371/.561 with 36 runs scored, 15 home runs, 33 RBI in 229 plate appearances
Offense at DH - .244/.329/.520 with 34 runs scored, 16 home runs, 40 RBI in 249 plate appearances

There's an obvious difference in the line, and Rice's two biggest slumps of the year have come while he's gotten wildly inconsistent reps at first base. Back in June, he recorded 11 games at first base but only twice did he play the position on back-to-back days. On multiple occasions he went three days or longer without playing defense. Same goes for his current slump, which dates back a month.

Since July 10, he's played a total of five games at first. Over that span, he's gone seven days or more on FOUR separate occasions not playing defense. We understand the metrics weren't great, and we also covered this a bit deeper over two months ago, but in no world is it acceptable to shield a promising young player from the reality of becoming an effective defender.

Rice's OAA and arm strength are terrible. There's no denying that. Many times we questioned his decisions going after or neglecting ground balls and wondered how many double plays could have been turned if he simply threw the ball harder. But there's also the fact he's made just three errors in 455 2/3 innings at first base. He's far from an elite defender, but he's not unplayable. There's certainly a middle ground where he can work on some fundamentals to improve his decision making, positioning and execution.

Fully removing the position from his arsenal makes so little sense in countless ways, and we're just sitting here wondering how it'll adversely affect the team when they (hopefully) return to full strength ... as well as in 2027 and beyond.

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