Morning, all!

ESPN wasn’t terribly impressed with the Rangers’ offseason, giving them a C+ and noting that they saved some money but didn’t make the team any better.

Sebastian Walcott had a good feeling going into his elbow surgery and wasn’t surprised he ended up only needing internal brace surgery.

Nathan Eovaldi was working mostly on his curveball and cutter in Wednesday’s win over Cleveland.

A year ago Jake Burger’s 4 year old daughter had open heart surgery, and yesterday Burger marked the anniversary by hitting a homer.

Shawn McFarland continues his top 30 Ranger countdown with a look at number 27, left handed pitcher Josh Trentadue.

I saw the movie ‘Redux Redux’ last night, an action movie about a woman who travels to parallel universes to punish someone who did her wrong, over and over and over again.

Weirdly enough, that got me to thinking about a Dodgers question for today. This doesn’t even need to be in the realm of the film’s tagline — “revenge on repeat” — but can be anything. For instance, I might try to prevent the St. Louis Cardinals from trading Willie McGee to an American League team in August 1990, which might or might notlead to Eddie Murray winning a batting title. You know, the real important stuff.

Today’s question what is one Dodgers-related action you would try to change in another universe? A game, a transaction, a specific action? Let us now in the comments below.

Here are the lineups for today’s game.

Phillies:

Nationals:

Garrett Stubbs hits a homer today.

Howdy everyone!

The Mariners certainly uh….played a spring training game yesterday, tying the Royals 8-8. It’s still that period of Cactus League play where almost literally nothing that happens matters and only like 30% (don’t quote me on that) of at-bats taken or pitches thrown are by people who will meaningfully contribute to the MLB team in 2026. However, my intrigue for Brennen Davis continues to grow with each passing day.

Davis, in case you’ve forgotten, was a top prospect for the Cubs who never quite broke through — though he’s young enough that he still could. That’s got me thinking: what Mariners prospect of the last 20 years do you really wish had panned out the way they were supposed to, if you could only pick one?

In Mariners news…

• J.P. Crawford is sitting out of spring games while he recovers from a shoulder issue. The team does not expect him to miss significant time with the injury at this juncture.
• Crawford was asked to officiate teammate Ryan Bliss’ wedding this offseason. Daniel Kramer spoke to the pair about their close friendship and why Bliss’ wife felt Crawford was the perfect person for the job.
• Now entering the season as the team’s de facto ace, Bryan Woo is working hard to embrace his role as a leader in the clubhouse.
• Ryan Divish spoke to players and coaches about why they’re so excited for Brendan Donovan to take his role at the top of Seattle’s lineup in 2026.
• Josh Naylor spoke up about the importance of respecting trailblazers like umpire Jen Pawol, to whom he displayed public support during the Mariners’ game against the White Sox.
• Jesús Cano at Baseball America spoke to Mariners bullpen hopeful Robinson Ortiz about his journey to the big leagues and why 2026 might be the year it all comes together for him. ($)
• Barrett Snyder at ABCA spoke to Mariners mental skills coach Kellen Lee to get his perspective on the importance of mental health for professional athletes and how he helps Seattle’s youngsters thrive on and off the field.

Around the league…

• The Yankees are retiring the jersey No. 52 in honor of ace left-hander CC Sabathia on September 26. He will be the 24th player to have his number retired by the Bombers.
• Late last night, the Blue Jays agreed to a one-year, $3M deal to bring back veteran right-hander Max Scherzer.
• The Diamondbacks were hit hard by the news that right-hander Merrill Kelly is likely to start the season on the injured list due to back discomfort.
• Cubs first baseman Tyler Austin — recently signed from NPB — will miss “months” after undergoing knee surgery.
• Tigers pitchers Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez have deferred payments on their contracts that won’t fully pay out until 2039.
• After Angels owner Arte Moreno said that the team’s fans don’t view winning as a high priority, Ray Ratto at Defector took him to the cleaners for being out of touch with reality.
• Angels right-hander Alek Manoah spoke to Fangraphs’ David Laurila about his longshot comeback attempt. Do you believe he can reclaim his former glory?
• Houston Astros prospect Bryce Boettcher — who hasn’t played in a game for the organization after being drafted by them in 2024 — is taking a leave of absence to pursue a career in the NFL.
• It’s been a rocky career for Blue Jays right-hander José Berríos. Patrick Dubuque at Baseball Prospectus wonders if the former ace has another gear left as he enters his 30s. ($)

Anders’ picks…

• Many Pokémon fans have likely already heard the news that versions FireRed and LeafGreen are coming to the Switch 2 on Friday. I think I’m going to take this opportunity to finally try my hand at a Nuzlocke run. Does anyone have any advice for a first-timer?

1. Charlie Condon (563 points, 19 ballots)

Condon’s 2024 professional debut was a bit of a dud, but his first full season as a professional saw the 22-year-old righty slugger hit his way to Double-A. Condon received a MLB record-tying $9.25 million bonus as the third-overall pick in the 2024 draft (about $180k over slot) because of his huge offensive ceiling. He can translate his immense power into games, he hits for average, and has rare defensive ability for his size.

Condon was a one-man wrecking crew in 2024 for Georgia, as the 6’6”, 216-pound hitter smashed 37 homers — a record in the NCAA’s “BBCOR” bats era — and won the prestigious Golden Spikes award as the top amateur baseball player in the country. Given that success, it’s hard to believe that Condon (who played first, third, and all three outfield positions for Georgia) not only went undrafted as a high schooler but also was a walk-on who redshirted in 2022.

In 2023, Condon stepped into the Dawgs’ lineup and was an immediate success, swatting 25 homers in 56 games en route to a video game line of .386/.484/.800 in 254 plate appearances. That certainly got him on draft radars, and the aforementioned 2024 power explosion rocketed him up to, for many, the very top of the draft. In 304 plate appearances over 60 games for Georgia in 2024, Condon not only hit 37 homers, he also added 20 doubles and a triple while walking 16 more times than he struck out. In all, Condon hit a massive .433/.556/1.009 in 2024!

The Rockies assigned Condon straight to High-A Spokane, as befits a player many tabbed to move very quickly through the system. Unfortunately, Condon was downright bad for Spokane, hitting an anemic .180/.248/.270 (48 wRC+) with 34 strikeouts compared with four walks in 109 plate appearances while dealing with a bruised thumb. Condon did have six extra-base hits, including a homer, and four stolen bases (which is more than his entire collegiate total in two years at Georgia). That performance certainly soured many on Condon, but he still entered 2025 on many top 100 lists.

The 2025 season didn’t get off to a good start for Condon, who suffered a non-displaced left wrist fracture in his very first minor league spring training game. The injury kept Condon out until mid-May (after a nine-game rehab stint with the complex league team) when the Rockies sent Condon back to Spokane. Condon was much more successful in his return engagement, hitting .312/.431/.420 in 167 plate appearances across 35 games with three homers and six doubles (134 wRC+). The Rockies promoted Condon to Double-A Hartford on July 1st, where he was 1.5 years younger than league average — and not long after, Condon was selected to the prestigious MLB Futures Game (he started at first base and went 0-for-3).

In 237 plate appearances with Hartford, Condon had a .235/.342/.465 batting line with 11 homers among his 21 extra-base hits, which equated to an impressive 132 wRC+. There were still warts on the profile — Condon has struck out in 28% of his plate appearances in Double-A (walking in 11%) and he seemingly slid down the defensive spectrum from a third baseman/outfielder to primarily a first baseman (one error in 74 games there) who occasionally played left field and third base (two errors in five games there). Fans expecting the monstrous power Condon showed at Georgia no doubt expect more too, but at the end of the day a 132 wRC+ in Condon’s initial exposure to Double-A is pretty encouraging.

Condon finished the season in the Arizona Fall League to replace some of the at-bats he lost with his delayed start to the year. Against a less polished set of pitchers, Condon feasted with a .337/.439/.434 line in 98 plate appearances, including a homer, two triples, and a double. He was also named as a Fall Star.

This spring, Condon received a big league spring training invite, where the Rockies have played Condon in the outfield corners as well to lean into his defensive versatility. Condon is off to a hot start, hitting a massive homer earlier this week against the Angels, and discussed some of his goals with Purple Row’s Sam Bradfield last weekend.

Here’s some looks at Condon during the Arizona Fall League (including an absolute bomb of a grand slam at the 2:15 mark):

Here are some of Condon’s 2025 highlights.

Multiple outlets ranked Condon atop their 2024 draft rankings and some of them still have Condon in their top 100.

Keith Law of the Athletic had Condon as the number one player in the draft, then ranked Condon 46th on his top 100 (number two in the system) earlier this month:

Condon’s first full pro season got off to a miserable start, as he broke his wrist making a diving catch in spring training, missing seven weeks before he got back to High A. He hit fairly well there, with his power diminished likely as a result of the injury, posting a .312/.431/.420 line with a modest chase rate of 20 percent. He then moved to Double A and hit .235/.342/.465 as he had real difficulty picking up off-speed stuff. Condon has electric bat speed and hammers fastballs, showing at least 70 power in college, but he moved his hands back up in 2025 after dropping them in his draft year, and I think that’s one of the reasons he’s not reacting to breaking pitches or changeups that well. (There are, unfortunately, rumors that while he was at Georgia, the Dogs were stealing signs, so their hitters might have known what was coming.) He did bounce back a little in the AFL, reaching 111.6 mph and showing better swing decisions, although the pitching out there was not close to what he saw nightly in Double A.

Condon is a good enough athlete to handle an outfield corner, though the Rockies played him primarily at first base last year, as it’s a position of real need for them and he has experience on the dirt at third base. He has 30-plus homer upside, easily, and the patience and zone awareness to be a valuable hitter even if he hits .240-.250. The new regime in Denver should have a clear plan for helping him get back to the hitter he was in 2024 when he was the No. 3 pick in the draft.

FanGraphs just ranked Condon 67th overall as a 50 FV player, second in the system (after ranking him fourth among draft prospects in 2024), with a 70 raw power and 60 future game power grade to go along with a 60 arm:

With two hand injuries in the rear-view mirror, it’s time for Condon to prove he can tap into the plus-plus power that made him such a coveted amateur prospect.

Condon put up cartoonish numbers at Georgia, homering 62 times in two seasons, including 37 times in 2024 alone, when he hit .433/.446/1.009 in a Golden Spikes-winning campaign. He was considered by many the top prospect in that year’s draft, and when he fell to the third overall pick, Colorado seemed a perfect match of offensive upside and future park.

It may still prove to be. Eric was (and remains) skeptical of Condon even while he was riding roughshod over the SEC, and his first year-and-a-half of pro at-bats have only validated pre-draft concerns about a grooved bat path and trouble recognizing spin. You can wave away a rough pro debut, as post-draft cameos are kind of awkward, and he was battling through a bone spur in his finger at the time anyway. But even as a wrist fracture last spring complicates the evaluation of his 2025 performance, it’s becoming fair to wonder how much pop Condon will bring into games.

There’s little doubt about his raw impact. Condon is a big guy with plus bat speed and a powerful swing that produces data commensurate with the visual evaluation. His 90th-percentile exit velocity was nearly 106 mph and his max was over 112, both of which are plus. He also had a 44% hard-hit rate and a 13 degree average launch angle that looks, well, like a match for a guy who bashed 60 homers in college. Still, he only homered 14 times in 99 games while running a 131 wRC+ across High- and Double-A, which are both fine in the aggregate but underwhelming for a player with this skill set. This coincided with a move to first base — perhaps just to protect the wrist, perhaps not. We’ll see what Colorado’s new regime decides to do here, because Condon has played elsewhere and looked like a perfectly fine corner outfielder as a pro.

Ultimately, the power potential here is too great to ignore despite everything else. There’s enough noise and hand injuries lurking to think that there’s some small chance of a big breakout coming, but even if there’s not, Condon projects as a 2-3 WAR player with 35-plus homer potential, even if he’s flawed elsewhere.

MLB Pipeline (who had him second among draft prospects) ranks Condon 70th overall as a 55 FV player with a 55 grade on his power hit, and arm tools:

The 6-foot-6 right-handed hitter still uses the largely upright stance, bent at the knees, lower hands and simple mechanics that brought him so much success at Georgia, but without the same impact. With the Bulldogs, he showed he could hit the ball out of the park to all fields with plenty of bat speed and leverage. While he’s continued to draw walks, his overall approach has suffered as a pro. The injuries clearly have played a part, especially in getting to his raw power, but he’s struggled against softer stuff, with a 40 percent miss rate against breaking and offspeed stuff at all stops in 2025. His approach was better in the AFL, albeit without impact.

In college, Condon played all over the outfield (where his arm plays well) and at third, but since joining the Rockies, it’s been almost all first base, with a little corner outfield mixed in. The corner-infield spot is his most likely home long-term, which puts more pressure on the power to show up. The Rockies, for their part, aren’t as concerned, thinking that his all-around hitting is coming around and the pop will follow.

Multiple scouts have drawn comparisons between Condon and Kris Bryant. While, of course, Bryant’s tough tenure with the Rockies (three more years!) have left a sour taste in the mind of fans, he deservedly won the Rookie of the Year and NL MVP awards in his first two years as a big leaguer and has been an All-Star four times. Condon has the kind of offensive potential and defensive utility that could make him a star in the league for several years (especially if he is able to get his power into games), so he deservedly ranks in this range in the PuRPs poll — he was number two on my list as a 55 FV player.

Condon’s 2025 results weren’t problem-free (strikeouts in particular) and I’m worried about his slide down the defensive spectrum (but am encouraged by him playing in the outfield this spring). Still, it was nice to see him doing some damage at Double-A. He should begin the year in Triple-A Albuquerque and could force his way into the lineup sometime this season, though the role and impact is still up in the air.

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The Cardinals are tanking.

Oh, they can deny it all they want and claim it’s a “rebuild that’s not a rebuild” like a certain team we know did, but this is full-out tanking.

It’s not surprising, given that they have a new executive in charge in Chaim Bloom, their new President of Baseball Operations who formerly held that role with the Red Sox. And, in fact, Bloom made a couple of key trades with his former team, sending Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras to Boston. (That means that Cubs fans won’t see Willson at Wrigley this year, and in fact the Cubs won’t see him at all until the final three games of the 2026 regular season.)

What’s left is… a bunch of guys. Their No. 1 starter is (checks notes) probably Dustin May, who they got in one of those Boston deals. May’s biggest claim to “fame” is that he’s been injured in almost all of his six MLB seasons. He was once a Top 20 prospect in all of baseball. But, you know, prospects bust.

The rest of their rotation is guys who have either failed elsewhere or are wannabes: Michael McGreevy, Andre Pallante, Matthew Liberatore… you get the idea. The bullpen, same thing, mostly.

Lars Nootbaar and Alec Burleson are probably the Cardinals’ two best hitters and both have been said to be potential trade targets before the season begins. I wouldn’t be surprised. They don’t have a single player on their roster who hit even 20 home runs in 2025.

Rebuilds can work. Just ask Theo Epstein, for example. But the Cardinals are likely going to have to hit rock bottom before they come back. Okay by me.

A bit of history to look out for: The Cardinals lost 91 games in 2023. The last time they had lost that many before then was 1990 (92 losses), and before that 93 in 1978. However, no Cardinals team has lost more than 93 games since 1913 (!), when they lost 99, and no Cardinals team has lost 100 since 1908 (105). Both of the last two numbers could be threatened this year. Seems Oli Marmol likely won’t last past this year as manager.

And by the time the Cubs see the Cardinals, they could be buried in last place in the NL Central. The first Cubs/Cardinals game is Game 58 of the Cubs season. Then they’ll play 10 times in a 37-game stretch from early July to mid-August, and not after that. Thanks, schedule-makers.

Key departures: Sonny Gray, Willson Contreras, Miles Mikolas, Nolan Arenado, Brendan Donovan, Andre Granillo

Key arrivals: Scott Blewett, Dustin May, Hunter Dobbins, Justin Bruihl, Ryne Stanek, Zack Thompson, Nelson Velázquez, George Soriano, Jared Shuster

At Wrigley Field: July 3-4-5 and Aug. 14-15-16

At St. Louis: May 29-30-31 and July 27-28-29-30

SB Nation team site:Viva el Birdos

This series will continue tomorrow with a look at the NL East.

MJ Melendez, once upon a time, was a top prospect in the game of baseball.

The now 27 year old was a 2017 second round pick (52nd overall) by the Kansas City Royals out of high school, and ascended through the minor leagues rather quickly. Originally a catcher, Melendez reached High-A ball in 2019 before losing a year of his minor league career due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. He did not miss a beat in 2021 despite the lost year, hitting .288/.386/.625 (1.011 OPS), which validated his top prospect rankings by Baseball Prospectus (35th), Baseball America (42nd) and MLB Pipeline (51st) prior to the 2022 season.

That 2022 season saw him make his Major League debut, though involved a position change as well. With Salvador Perez ensconced behind the plate for the Royals, they opted to move Melendez to the corner outfield to put his bat in the lineup, which is how it went from 2022 to 2024. The results were, well, just alright. He hit okay enough; .217/.313/.393 (97 wRC+) in 2022, .235/.316/.398 (93 wRC+) in 2023, and .206/.273/.400 (86 wRC+) in 2024, but a whopping -16 Outs Above Average over those three seasons made him a below average starter overall.

2025 was nothing short of a disaster for Melendez. He played in just 23 Major League games, hit .083/.154/.167, and was demoted to Triple-A for the rest of the season before getting non-tendered in the early offseason, which brings us to his 2026.

Melendez signed a one year, $1.5m deal with the Mets in mid-February, which gave both him and the Mets a few options — literally and figuratively. The Mets have one bench spot rather open, and the right field position theoretically open (though, in my personal opinion, I would’ve thought Carson Benge had the fast track to the spot). Melendez will be in camp with the Mets to compete for that bench spot. However, with the signing and subsequent comments by Mike Tauchman, it sounds like the Mets signed Tauchman with the idea that he will have the first crack at the bench spot. So, where does that leave Melendez?

Melendez, despite never really taking off at the Major League level, still has a minor league option to his name. In all likelihood, the Mets signed Melendez with the idea of trying to fix some things about his game to get him back to the play that made him a top prospect five years ago, and doing so in Triple-A, with no impact on the Major League team and with as little eyeballs as humanly possible on you, would likely be the best path for both sides.

Melendez, even if he can revert back to his 2022 and 2023 play, can be a useful bench player. He can stand in both outfield spots, first base, be an emergency catcher in a more functional way than nearly every other ball club, and also contribute some power, as he hit 18, 16 and 17 home runs in his three years as a starter. Now, of course, there is work to be done there, but a revamped Mets hitting apparatus could be the key to getting Melendez back on track after a derailing 2025.

When you speak of the World Baseball Classic to Royals fans, their most vivid memories will be how two of their most important players heading into the 2023 season – Bobby Witt Jr. and Brady Singer – were participants on Team USA. Bobby and Brady were going to be vital to whatever success the Royals could have in 2023, but things didn’t go well.

Bobby managed only three plate appearances, but he did take a walk and smacked an RBI double. Brady Singer pitched two innings in a single game and allowed four runs. Considering the time they were away from Royals’ camp, it felt like they weren’t getting nearly enough work, and when the season began, they both got off to incredibly slow starts that helped bury the team in its 7-22 start, which snuffed the dim playoff hopes some fans might have had prior to the beginning of the year.

Over that span, Bobby slashed .253/.297/.453, good for a 100 wRC+, but not at all what Royals fans had hoped for his sophomore season. Singer made six starts, posting an 8.49 ERA. Both players improved significantly as the season went on, but by that point, it didn’t matter for 2023. It wasn’t disastrous because the 2023 Royals were, generally, not a good team, and even if they’d been better, things might not have turned out any happier. But the slow starts of those two players in particular were laid at the feet of their lack of playing time in the WBC.

Those two weren’t the only ones to play in that WBC from the Royals, however.

Vinnie Pasquantino was the starting first baseman for Team Italy. As such, he got 22 plate appearances. Pasquantino has developed a reputation for slow starts, but in 2023, he started out the year .279/.375/.500. He was one of the best hitters in baseball for that first month. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long after that when he reinjured his shoulder and had to have season-ending surgery.

So while some fans worry about Jac Caglianone playing in the 2026 WBC, I’m excited about the opportunity in front of him. With Vinnie still on Team Italy, Caglianone will likely be their starting right fielder. That means he’s going to get competitive-speed action for a handful of games weeks before many of his peers. If that can’t help jump-start his 2026, I don’t know what will.

And don’t worry about Bobby, Salvy, or Maikel Garcia, either. They’re all almost certainly starters on their teams, too.

What about the pitchers?

Seth Lugo will be pitching for Puerto Rico, while Michael Wacha will pitch for Team USA. But there are far fewer reasons to be concerned about them than there ever were about Brady Singer. First of all, they’re veteran pitchers who have had long careers and a lot of success. They know how to take care of business, and a couple of extra weeks of pitching in the WBC isn’t going to cause them to delay their preparation for the season as it appeared to with Brady Singer, who was entering his fourth season.

But the next reason is perhaps just as important. Brian Sweeney and his staff appear to be infinitely better at preparing their pitchers for success than Cal Eldred and his staff were in 2022. It is easy to forget now, but the Royals’ coaching staff was the butt of many MLB jokes in 2022. Sure, Brian Sweeney was technically the pitching coach for Kansas City by the time the WBC came around in 2022, but Singer likely spent much of that offseason operating under instructions from Eldred or another coach who ultimately wasn’t retained to lead the staff. Lugo and Wacha have had the ability to know who their pitching coach is all offseason and have an exceptionally solid plan in place for how to handle their WBC duties in addition to getting ready for the season.

Regardless, the WBC is important

Honestly, even as a Royals fan, I’d support all of these guys going to participate in the WBC, even if I had real concerns about how they’d perform once they got back. Life is, at its core, a series of experiences. And if you get a chance to experience something like the WBC, you have to do it – even if, as a professional baseball player, you already get to experience things most of us only dream about. We only get one life, and it would be cruel to ask them to throw away a chance like this just because it might make it infinitesimally less likely that we’ll get to watch our team hoist a World Series trophy at the end of the year.

That’s more true than ever this year, as the 2023 WBC was such a classic that this iteration has generated more buzz than any I can remember. With all the nonsense about player insurance and teams telling their players they aren’t allowed to participate for one reason or another, there’s no telling how much longer this event could continue to go on. They’ve got to take advantage of it while they can.

And, to be clear, the WBC should go on. It might be awful to lose a key player to injury before the season even begins because he was participating in the tournament, but if baseball is going to continue to thrive as we push into the second quarter of the 21st century, it’s going to need to gain global appeal. It has a head start over a league like the NFL because baseball is already incredibly popular in many Latin American and Asian countries, but that’s all the more reason to not let that advantage lapse while the NFL continues to expand its own global footprint. MLB needs the WBC almost as badly as the WBC needs it, and I’m excited so many Royals will be participating this time.

The list of position players to make the majors in the Yankees’ organization since Aaron Judge’s 2017 rookie campaign that have made such a great impact right out the gate is small.

Miguel Andujar was fantastic in 2018, but that fizzled out when he tried to play through a labrum tear in 2019. Gleyber Torres wasn’t yet 23 years old by the time he became a two-time All-Star in 2019. Despite not overwhelmingly great offensive numbers, Austin Wells was a Rookie of the Year finalist in 2024, and Jasson Domínguez had a memorable first 10 days in pinstripes before undergoing Tommy John surgery in September 2023.

Ben Rice is older than all of these guys, turning 27 earlier in February. The former 12th-round pick was a very late bloomer who fell under the radar due to COVID-19 wiping out two entire seasons when he was at Dartmouth, and made his way to the majors in June 2024 after forcing the action with tremendous hitting in the minor leagues. After a rough cup of coffee that barely exhausted his rookie eligibility, Rice put on some muscle and clobbered the ball in 2025, forcing his way into the heart of the order as one of the team’s key bats. And despite the tremendous season he had, this might’ve been just the beginning.

2025 statistics: 143 games, 581 plate appearances, .255/.337/.499, 26 HR, 65 RBI, 133 wRC+, 9.4 BB%, 18.9 K%, -6 Defensive Runs Saved, 1 Outs Above Average, 3.0 fWAR

2026 ZiPS DC projections: 130 games, 560 plate appearances, .241/.330/.462, 26 HR, 79 RBI, 121 wRC+, 10.3 BB%, 20.7 K%, 2.5 fWAR

There are 13 batting categories on Baseball Savant’s percentile rankings. Rice was the only qualified player in MLB who was better than the 60th percentile in all 13 categories:

To achieve this, you need to master several different aspects of hitting. You need to be patient, hit for power, display tremendous bat control, make good contact, and make good swing decisions. Rice does all of that, and even if you take off some of the less-important percentiles, he’s still part of a very, very elite class. The fascinating part is that a Savant page that looks this red almost always belongs to an MVP-caliber hitter, not a guy who lost out on a Silver Slugger to Zach McKinstry. That’s why it’s hard to contain excitement over what Rice can become as he enters his athletic prime: he was one of the unluckiest hitters in baseball last season.

Rice’s expected and actual stats slowly moved closer together as the season wound down, but he still underperformed his xwOBA by 36 points, making him the eighth-unluckiest hitter out of 251 qualified bats. For some of these hitters, the gap is between mediocre and average, or average to good. For Rice, the gap is between being great and being an All-MLB caliber hitter.

Why is he so unlucky? Well, he had a 25.2 pulled fly ball percentage, one of the highest in baseball. That, combined with his overall high rate of pulling the ball, does make it slightly easier to defend him due to defensive positioning. Defenses shade to the right side over 72 percent of the time against Rice, one of the league’s highest rates.

But using that as a reason for why Rice is “predictable” and will never be able to close that gap is lazy. Opposing defenses are also extremely sharp when he happens to be in the batter’s box.

Compare that with two Yankees on the opposite level of the spectrum, Aaron Judge (-7 OAA) and Trent Grisham (-9 OAA). Both hit the ball scorching hard, which limits a defender’s margin for error, and thus, yield higher BABIPs, especially in the case of Judge, whose BABIP in 2025 was historically high. Grisham pulls the ball just like Rice and also underperformed his peripherals, but didn’t get this level of defense.

The sky is the limit for Rice at the plate if he replicates that batted ball data. Can we really expect that a player who had a .439 xwOBA, 70.3 HardHit%, and 11.5 Whiff% against four-seam fastballs to only generate a +1 run value again?

The bigger question for Rice is his role and his playing time. The Yankees’ plan is for Rice to be the team’s primary first baseman, who’s also capable of filling in behind the plate. Rice isn’t the strongest framer or blocker (especially compared to Austin Wells and JC Escarra), and has an arm that will be exploited, but he’s far from the worst option to occasionally catch with his offensive tools. There’s a chance Escarra starts the season in Triple-A, and if he does, that’ll mean more reps behind the plate for Rice.

Initially, it seemed that Rice would get significantly more reps against left-handed pitching this year, but the Yankees decided to re-unite with the lefty-killing Paul Goldschmidt, who will certainly eat into Rice’s playing time against tough lefties. This could ultimately be a good idea, but Rice was passable against lefties last season and doesn’t have the level of drastic platoons that Ryan McMahon and Jazz Chisholm Jr. have.

Another potential benefit to bringing back the 38-year-old Goldschmidt is that Rice is still relatively new to first base, and there are worse things in the world than a four-time Gold Glover being a defensive mentor for Rice, who was mediocre defensively at the position last season. He’ll probably be sitting in the dugout late in close games for Goldy, but that shouldn’t cost him too many at-bats.

If he played two weeks less when filling in for an injured Anthony Rizzo in 2024 and Nick Kurtz didn’t exist, there’s a real chance that Rice would’ve been Rookie of the Year in 2025. There are a lot of similarities in the profiles of the Big Amish and Rice, who could both be among the AL’s best first basemen for the next decade. There’s a lot to be excited about with Ben Arroz, and 2026 could be just another step towards superstardom.

See more of the Yankees Previews series here.