Why Ben Rice's MVP case deserves more love in a lost Aaron Judge season

Without Aaron Judge for most of the season, the AL MVP race is wide open. The favorite for much of the year has been Houston Astros slugger Yordan Álvarez, but he's far from a sure thing. The New York Yankees have seen Cam Schlittler's candidacy get more recognition in recent weeks, but there's another Yankee who's being grossly overlooked.

Ben Rice was obviously a breakout star for New York last season, but this year he has reached a new gear. Aaron Boone predicted that Rice would clock 39 dingers this season, which was the total the Dartmouth product was sitting on when the Yankees took on the Tampa Bay Rays on September 23, with five games left to play. Neither team had anything left to play for with playoff positions solidified, so it seemed like a good chance that Rice would finish at that number.

But just like that, the 27-year-old bested his manager when he led off the bottom of the first with a solo shot. That wasn't all, though, as Rice came back up to the plate to lead off the bottom of the fourth and smacked his second tater of the game. He now sits at 41 homers and enters the Yankees' record book as a result.

His 40th blast of the year put him in some elite company in franchise history. Rice became just the eighth Yankee to hit 40 or more homers in a season at age 27 or younger. The rest of the list includes four inner-circle Hall of Famers: Babe Ruth (twice), Lou Gehrig (twice), Mickey Mantle (twice), and Joe DiMaggio. In addition to those four, the other three are former single-season home run king Roger Maris, Juan Soto, and, of course, Judge.

Ben Rice's 40th homer underscores how incredibly valuable he's been to the Yankees in Aaron Judge's absence

MLB.com's latest awards poll has Rice as a distant fifth in the voting, behind Álvarez, Junior Caminero, Bobby Witt Jr., and Schlittler, in that order. There are a few things that don't make much sense here.

Álvarez has been great this year, but there's a narrative among some that he's been Judge-like that just isn't true. Air Yordan has posted a 181 wRC+ through September 23, which is still over 20 points lower than Judge's 203 mark last season, which also happened to be the lowest wRC+ he has put up in any of his three MVP campaigns. That's relevant because he is seeking to become the first full-time DH to take home the honor other than Shohei Ohtani.

As for Caminero, he began generating a lot of MVP buzz with his two walk-off homers in mid-September, as if those wins somehow count more than victories at any other point during the season. More importantly, Rice has caught up to him, as both now have 41 homers. Rice has also surpassed him in on-base percentage (.362 versus .360) and slugging percentage (.537 versus .523).

The DH argument also works against Rice, but only to an extent. He's played 55 games at first base and has mostly ceded playing time in the field to accommodate trade deadline acquisition Luis Garcia Jr. It should also be noted that Caminero isn't a great defensive third baseman and is last among qualifiers at the position with -11 outs above average.

More importantly, there's the Judge factor in all of this. The Astros are on the brink of either missing the playoffs for the second year in a row or winning the most pathetic division in MLB history, dipping under .500 late in the campaign. The Rays have had their big boppers like Yandy Diaz and Jonathan Aranda healthy for most of the year.

Losing a player as singular as Judge is a huge blow to a team, but the Yankees are playoff-bound yet again. Throw in a lengthy absence from Cody Bellinger and the fact that they're starting to print milk cartons with Giancarlo Stanton's face on them, and it's been Rice who has kept the offense afloat all year.

If the point of this exercise is to recognize the player who has been the most valuable, then the loss of Judge looms large. We've had our frustrations, but the Yankees really haven't skipped a beat without Judge and his enormous value. Rice is a big reason why, and while it might not be enough to win him the award, he should be a much larger part of the conversation.

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