DataBaseball
2026
Ben Rice headshot

Players · R · DH · 2026

Ben Rice

Age
27
B/T
L/R
Height
6' 2"
Weight
228 lb
Number
#22
Born
February 22, 1999 in Cohasset, MA, United States
MLB debut
June 18, 2024
Drafted
2021, round 12
College
Dartmouth
dbWAR
6.8
3 season(s)
PA
667
AVG
.264
OBP
.363
SLG
.534
wRC+
142
100 = avg

Ben Rice is a designated hitter for the New York Yankees. So far in 2026 he has hit 41 home runs and knocked in 97 RBIs, notching 151 hits across 667 plate appearances in 154 games. His batting average is .264, 8.0% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .363 clip and slugged .534, for an OPS of .897, 24.8% higher than the league mark of .719 — the best on his team, and 6th of 462 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 91.9 mph off the bat, hit 48.6% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 13.8% of them and made contact on 74.6% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 142 wRC+ puts his offence 42% above average. That comes to 4.4 dbWAR — +37.4 runs with the bat, -1.4 for the ballpark, -0.8 on the bases, -1.8 on double plays, -12.2 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2026.

wRC+142
wOBA.386
ISO.271
BB%12.7%
WAR4.4

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +41.9 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting+37.4Ballpark-1.4Baserunning-0.8Double plays-1.8Position-12.2Replacement+20.6
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

4.42.0-0.4242526

Batting

Standard and advanced, by season.

Trend
2026NYY1546671514197385162.264.363.534.271.29512.7%24.3%.386+37.41424.4
2025NYY1365301192665350100.255.337.499.244.2719.4%18.9%.360+19.71352.8
2024NYY471782672302048.171.264.349.178.18611.2%27.0%.271-6.071-0.4

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2026. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP22119949111860.246.321.452.34027.1%
vs RHP4463741023067102.273.383.578.40922.9%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 413 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 414 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
13.8%
57 barrels
Exit velocity
91.9
mph average
Max exit velo
110.9
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
48.6%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
39.9%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
14.5°
average
Barrel rate13.8%
Exit velocity91.9 mph
Hard hit rate48.6%
Contact rate74.6%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2026.

.250.133.081.103.28132 AB.25551 AB.45522 AB.27765 AB.44481 AB.28132 AB.20663 AB.33360 AB.23126 AB
Below averageLeague averageAbove average
Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .243.

Situational hitting

How Ben Rice hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by
By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
SituationPAABHHRRBIBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBA
All situations667——————.264.363.534.386
Bases empty42437388252546106.236.328.485.354
Runner on first11295338181721.347.446.674.477
Runners on2432006316723956.315.424.625.443
RISP131105308542235.286.405.581.414

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.

Head to head

Put Ben Rice beside up to three others.

Compare — add up to 3 more players
Ben Rice

Similar players

Nearest 2026 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.