DUNEDEN, Fla. — Whenever the ball touches Ben Rice's bat this spring, it burns.
Grapefruitreug statistics are often misleading, but exit speeds can be a better sign of what is coming, and rice is better on both.
The main contender, who won the majority of Yankees DH at-bats to start the season, scored his fourth home run in the spring, 4-4, in a 6-5 loss to the Blue Jays at TD Ballpark.
Rice's two hits were out of the bat with 111.1 mph (RBI single) and 105.8 mph (415 feet blast).
Until Monday, the average outlet speed for rice this spring was 97.4 mph. This was one of the best hitters this spring (for reference, Judge Aaron led the majors with an average exit speed of 96.2 in the regular season last year).
It only had a small sample size of 43 at-bats, but Rice makes the most of them, but has put his place on the roster to break camp.
“It's impressive,” said manager Aaron Boone. “He can hit.
“It's real juice everywhere.”
Rice has come to camp with an additional £10 since June last year. Many of them were upper body muscles, giving him extra pop this spring.
“It definitely helps,” Rice said. Rice averaged exit speed last season at 90 mph last season in 152 big league batting. “It just puts more force on the ball and puts more mass behind it. If you put it in the air, something good happens.”
The Yankees believe Rice can become a legitimate major league catcher, but “he's back there,” Boone said before Monday's game.
The Yankees are expected to carry three catchers (all left-handed batsmen) who are performing more DH duties as backups behind Austin Wells and Rice.
Rice played Ibase last summer, making her major league debut in place of Anthony Rizzo's injuries.
He started out with the Red Hot, batting 0.294 with four home runs and .972 OPS before being able to cool down and return to Triple A by September.
“There's another level of power there,” Boone said. “Last year, he got your attention with how he could drive the ball, but this year I feel it's notably even different.”
