Yankees need Ben Rice to put in the work on leveling up his glove after it worked for his bat

After 2024, it was questionable whether Ben Rice was a major league caliber talent. The twelfth-round pick out of Dartmouth already had the odds stacked against him, and despite a history of superb production, his introduction to the New York Yankees saw him hit just .171/.264/.349 over 50 games.

To his credit, Rice studied up and found a few simple tweaks he could make to get back to demolishing baseballs as he'd done all his life. That dedication to his craft made it clear that he could level up again in 2026, and he did just that, raising his OPS from .836 in 2025 to .897 in 2026, while his homer total soared from 26 to 41.

During his rampage this season, the 27-year-old became a force against left-handed pitching, led the league with a whopping 224 wRC+ in high-leverage situations, and put together a postseason for the ages that was overshadowed by New York's disappointing exit.

While it seems like there's no more room for Rice to rise, the Yankees are going to need him to do just that in 2027, but this time it's not with the bat, but with the glove.

The Yankees are in trouble unless Ben Rice makes drastic defensive improvements

New York has a logjam brewing. Rice, Luis Garcia Jr., Giancarlo Stanton, and Aaron Judge are all going to be vying for at-bats at two spots — first base and DH. Sure, Judge likely won't be a full-time DH just yet, and there's a chance that the Yankees dump Stanton's contract (or that he lives on the IL again), but it's still going to be hard to find at-bats.

A pressure release valve, at least to some degree, could be trading Garcia Jr., as some early rumors suggest. Garcia Jr. handled the majority of the first base duties after coming over at the trade deadline, and he was a serviceable defender over there, posting 2 defensive runs saved and 3 outs above average. Moving on from him would mean Rice becomes the everyday first baseman, and that's where things get dicey.

In just 474 2/3 innings at the cold corner, Rice posted -8 DRS and -7 OAA. He fell well short of the threshold to qualify among the league leaders, but if he had, he'd have well exceeded Josh Naylor's league-worst -9 DRS over 1333 1/3 innings and Spencer Torkelson's -12 OAA over 1314 innings.

Essentially, the Yankees are staring down the barrel of having the worst defensive first baseman in the league, by far. While many don't believe first base has much defensive value, there are subtle ways in which first basemen can have an outsized impact on the game, as six-time All-Star Joey Votto explains in this tweetstorm.

If New York decides that Garcia Jr.'s bat is too important to lose and instead decides to move him to a different position, as Aaron Boone previously hinted at, the Yankees could be on the brink of disaster. The former Washington National was abysmal defensively at second base, which is why he was moved to first to begin with. If he returns to second, he and Rice would form a historically bad right side of the infield. Not a great look for a team whose defense completely disintegrated in Game 2 of the ALDS.

Here's the silver lining, though. Rice is one of the most cerebral players in the game. He's intelligent (he went to Dartmouth and learned Spanish!), and he's a hard worker. He's already shown he can make amazing strides in the batter's box. Now, he has to do it in the field. There's no doubt that he's already hard at work, and it'd be a mistake to count him out.

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