Rice in his Veins
Ben Rice (NYY): 3-5, 2 HR, 4 R, 2 RBI.
The wind might have been blowing out in Yankee Stadium (not that it helped the Orioles much), but Ben Rice can mash in any weather.
Batting third for the Yanks, Rice was part of a back-to-back-to-back start to the game—quite the rude welcoming for Kyle Gibson—and Rice added another homer in the next inning. The offensive barrage brings his SLG up to .998 and he’s third in the American League with 22 runs scored.
Drafted out of Dartmouth in the twelfth round of 2021’s draft, Rice hit .273 with 24 homers in the Minors last year, which doesn’t sound impressive until you note that this was in just 80 games. He spent another 50 games with the big club, contributing another seven round-trippers, but looked overmatched at times and struggled to a .171 average. Still, his 15.6% barrel rate was nothing to sneeze at.
This year, he looks like a Mini-Me version of Aaron Judge (at least against righties, more to come on that). He’s in the 95th percentile or better in Average Exit Velocity, Barrel Rate, xSLG. So he’s hitting the ball incredibly hard—but he’s also 94th-percentile in Chase Rate and is walking 13% of the time, so he’s showing great discipline. And his .387 OBP is going to keep him at the top of the Yankees lineup.
Now, the downside—though two of his homers have come off lefties, Rice looks like a platoon candidate. His average is just .160 against southpaws with a .222 OBP and .622 OPS. He’s also striking out 36% of the time against them. This is actually an improvement over last year where he slashed .135/.267/.483, but that’s not terribly encouraging. Rice is seeing regular AB’s against them for the most part, but he at least gets downgraded in the lineup when a lefty starter is on the bump. Still, his struggles against the left side only brighten his stats against righties, where he’s got a 17:11 K:BB ratio on the season to go along with his erupting power.
Let’s see how the other hitters did Tuesday
Cody Bellinger (NYY): 2-4, 2B, HR, R, 3 RBI, 2 BB.
Bellinger snuck into the top 100 in many drafts this year after getting traded to the Yankees, where his lefty hit tools were thought to be a great fit to Yankee Stadium (his 18 homers last year would have been 24 in New York). But where Rice has thrived, Belly has been cold with just a .206 average that’s only a hair below his .207 xBA. Bellinger’s advanced metrics have looked middling in the last few years, causing many to doubt his resurgence with the Cubs as genuine (he hit .307 with 26 homers and 20 steals in 2023, but regressed in ’24). He’s showing signs of life at least, with an .894 OPS in his last seven, but don’t expect another 20/20 season.
Jorge Polanco (SEA): 2-3, 2 HR, 2 R, 5 RBI, BB.
What side injury? The switch-hitting Polanco had been limited in his at-bats of late as he felt uncomfortable hitting from the right side. He’s just fine hitting lefty, though, with five homers in his last four games. Jo Adell also nabbed a 106.8 mph, 388-foot blast that was a few inches from being Polanco’s third dinger of the night (okay, that’s better than fine). Polanco’s now up to nine homers on the year to go with a scorching .389 average. Worth noting, Polanco’s sprint speed has dropped from 27.5 f/s to 25.5, which might not sound like a lot, but it makes him 16th-percentile in the league compared to 54th last year. Maybe that and the side injury have changed his swing mechanics to generate more power. Either way, you can’t complain about the results.
Luis Robert Jr. (CHW): 1-3, HR, R, RBI, BB, SB.
Robert recently struck out sixteen times over a seven-game stretch, but he may be finding a rhythm. Owning the American League’s lowest batting average among qualified hitters (.152 after 111 plate appearances), Robert is a bit of an enigma. His swing speed is 90th percentile, but his Squared-Up Rate is also the lowest in the league. That said, Robert looks like a good buy-low candidate as his expected stats are markedly better than the actual numbers (not that a .215 xBA is good, but it’s 63 points higher than .152). And his 14.4% Walk Rate will somewhat offset his 31.5% K-Rate for you points leaguers.
Junior Caminero (TBR): 3-4, 2B, HR, R, RBI.
A trendy draft pick for his upside, Caminero had breakout written all over him this Spring. Still only 21 years of age, Junior boasts an unreal bat speed of 78.9 mph (Aaron Judge’s is 76.4 mph for reference) and has a Hard-Hit rate of 51.9%. Curiously, his Barrel Rate is somehow less than 10% and he has a few other metrics that might seem contradictory: his Chase Rate is in the 9th-percentile but his Whiff Rate is in the 74th. This suggests he’s swinging at pitches out of the zone but still making contact (the quick bat at work). Caminero has a few holes in a game, but his raw physical talents suggest he’ll adjust. Remember, he’s got barely half a season under his belt. He is going to be a superstar.
Alex Bregman (BOS): 3-5, HR, 3 R, RBI.
Think he likes his new team? Bregman is reaching back in time to his All Star 2018 and 2019 seasons, where he was a doubles and RBI machine. His OPS is now over 1.000 and he’s hovering around a .400 OBP. Always elite in the plate discipline metrics, Bregman looks as patient at the plate as ever, but this season he’s hitting the ball more than three mph harder on average. His .325 BA is a fair amount above the xBA (.261) thanks to a forgiving BABIP (.364, well above his .282 career average), but good things happen when you improve your EV this substantially. Don’t expect Bregman to slow down much—he should continue to pace the American League in RBIs, Runs, and doubles off the Green Monster.
Rafael Devers (BOS): 1-3, HR, R, RBI, BB.
Devers made the wrong kind of history with 15 K’s in his first 19 at-bats of the season, but he was clearly ailing and probably should have started the season on the IL or in AAA. As the shoulder healed and the rust washed away, Devers has looked right again with three homers in his last four games. The K-rate has also plummeted in April, with just 24 in 119 Plate Appearances, and he’s hitting the ball as hard as ever (22.7% Barrel Rate, 95.7 mph Average EV, both 98th-percentile). Note that many of those early strikeouts were of the backwards-K variety, as Devers kept the bat on his shoulder in the early going. His Batting Average is down 55 points from last year but his .352 OBP is almost identical to 2024’s (.354) and 2023’s (.351). Look for the rest of his stats to normalize accordingly.
Isaac Collins (MIL): 1-4, HR, 2 R, 2 RBI, BB.
With just forty plate appearances on the season, Collins has already batted in six different slots in the batting order. He got his second start in the two-hole in this one and hit his first career Major League home run, a no-doubter to left field. As the Brew Crew’s 29th-ranked prospect, Collins shouldn’t be on your radar except in the deepest of leagues, but he does have a four-game hit streak and could warrant more playing time.
CJ Abrams (WSN): 4-5, 2B, 3B, R, RBI.
Abrams had a stint on the IL with a hip flexor strain, and the time off seems to have helped. He’s raised his batting average by 57 points with nine hits in his last five games and was just a home run away from the cycle. He has just eight runs scored and nine RBIs on the season, but the runs at least should jump up with James Wood and the rest of the Nationals’ lineup behind him. He’s on pace for another 20/30 season and could easily outpace last year’s .747 OPS (he’s at .865 so far).
Andy Pages (LAD): 3-5, HR, 2 R, 2 RBI, SB.
Pages looked like a replacement player at the bottom of the Dodgers’ lineup at the start of the season, but lately he’s been their MVP. Not really known for his power, Pages did have 26 homers in AA a few years ago and possesses better-than-average bat speed. He’s on a two-week heater with a 1.123 OPS in his last fifteen games and added a sock and a shoe in this one (with his 80th-percentile sprint speed, he should be good for 15 steals). His .293 batting average looks unsustainable given a .220 xBA, but those clamoring for Pages to be demoted are a little quieter now.
