Yankees Insider dishes sensational Ben Rice comp with 2 sobering cautionary tales

If we told you that Ben Rice seemed reminiscent of Kyle Schwarber, you'd probably think we were crazy. Rice was one of the most pleasant surprises for the New York Yankees last season, and put together a great year, but Schwarber hit 56 dingers and nearly stole the NL MVP away from Shohei Ohtani.

Rice's expected stats were basically on that level, but in turning what's going on under the hood to Schwarber-like production, the 27-year-old still has a way to go.

As Yankees insider Joel Sherman points out, Rice strongly resembles Schwarber in a certain sense, but he did "scream-write" that it doesn't mean that he was saying Rice will be a 50-plus homer bat and one of the game's premier sluggers when he's ready.

Instead, he drew the comparison of how Schwarber performed in his early career to how Rice has performed so far, and the similarities are striking. It's easy to get carried away and dream about how the Dartmouth product could progress, but two other sobering reminders prove that it's no guarantee.

Ben Rice's early track is eerily similar to Kyle Schwarber's, but two epic Yankees busts loom as cautionary tales

As Sherman points out, the similarities between Schwarber and Rice begin with their positional journeys. Both players started out as catchers, but defensive questions and big bats moved them out behind the plate, with Schwarber going to left field and Rice primarily settling in at first base.

The eerie part comes with how their performance has looked over the first 188 games of their respective careers. Rice owns a .234/.319/.462 line with 33 homers, a 118 wRC+, and 2.8 fWAR. In his first 188 games, Schwarber hit .221/.331/.465 with 42 homers, a 112 wRC+, and 2.7 fWAR.

The similarities don't end there. While Schwarber will never be a low-strikeout player, he worked hard to control the strikeouts and lean into his plate discipline to drive his on-base percentage, even recovering from a demotion to Triple-A after a horrible extended slump back in 2017.

Rice saw his early success quickly fizzle out in 2024 and was also sent down. The following offseason, he quickly went to work making the adjustments that fueled his 2025 breakout and gave hope for further steps forward in 2026.

As Sherman aptly points out, while 188 games seem like a representative sample size, it really isn't. He provides two other similar comps that don't inspire confidence, but instead strike fear in every Yankees fan's heart.

The first was Kevin Maas, who went on an absolute tear when he was called up as a 25-year-old back in 1990. Over his first 188 games, Maas slashed .230/.347/.434 (his first 79 games did a lot of the heavy lifting), crushing 36 homers and posting a 117 OPS+.

The other was Greg Bird, a former catcher-turned-first baseman. Bird only managed 186 games in the big leagues, and flamed out earlier than any of the other three players, but his 46-game showing in 2017 might have been the best initial period of the group (.261/.343/.529 with 11 homers).

Bird was once part of what we assumed would be a young core alongside Aaron Judge, Gary Sánchez, Gleyber Torres, and Luis Severino. A modern-day Core Five, if you will. We all know how that worked out.

There are two main takeaways here. The first is that development is not linear. A player can begin his career with promise, even potentially looking like a star, and then regress and fail to make the impact that seemed preordained.

The second is that a guy like Schwarber is one of the very best hitters in the game. Rice can possess similarities to him and still have a really good career while never reaching the same heights. The flip side of that coin is that he could prove to be even better with time, especially if he gets stronger with the glove. We just shouldn't expect him to match or exceed the Phillies star's value just because the numbers are almost identical over the beginning of their careers.