The New York Yankees have proven to be one of the best teams in baseball despite some key injuries. One of their stars, Giancarlo Stanton, is slated to return soon.
Having Stanton back will be great for the Yankees, but it will create an issue with playing time for Ben Rice, who is having a breakout year. He has an .825 OPS and 12 home runs. His spot as the team’s everyday designated hitter is in danger, and playing him at first base will not be easy, as Paul Goldschmidt has played great. The Yankees will not be optioning Rice, so it falls on Aaron Boone and his staff to find him at-bats regularly.
“Only four MLB players are hitting the ball harder than Rice this season, as measured by average exit velocity: Oneil Cruz, Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge and Pete Alonso. Rice is closer to gracing the cover of “MLB: The Show” than he is to earning a trip to Scranton,” wrote SNY’s Andy Martino. “But the team will have a redundancy at designated hitter once it activates Stanton, which could come as soon as late next week.”
In an ideal world, the Yankees would have Rice play third or second base and solve their infield woes. However, the team has no intention of playing rise anywhere but first base or catcher, according to Martino. However, he did reveal how the Yankees could potentially keep Stanton, Rice and Goldschmidt playing regularly, even if that means not necessarily playing together.
“(Boone) can begin by easing Stanton in and using Rice against right-handed pitching,” wrote Martino. “Beyond that, he can move Rice between first base and DH. Rice, a catcher by trade, had continued to work at that position before games with catching coordinator Tanner Swanson. He could start at catcher occasionally, but Escarra is Austin Wells’ backup and shouldn’t see his playing time significantly reduced.
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“Rice recently took ground balls at third base, but he is not a candidate to play there. The Yankees do not plan to use Rice at any defensive position other than first base and catcher.”
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