With Austin Wells struggling on the plate and Ben Rice swinging an impression bat, the latter discovered himself serving because the Yankees’ beginning catcher for the second consecutive evening on Tuesday in opposition to the Twins.
Primarily a DH and first baseman firstly of the season, the Yankees solely let Rice catch in blowout video games earlier this yr. Nevertheless, the pure catcher, who largely performed first as a rookie final yr after studying the place briefly order, started getting begins behind the plate after Giancarlo Stanton returned from his tennis elbow accidents in June.
Now Rice is incomes these alternatives. Tuesday marked his fifth catching begin within the Yankees’ final seven video games. In the meantime, Wells, hitting .208/.267/.412 with 15 dwelling runs, 56 RBI and an 84 wRC+ whereas posting abysmal numbers in opposition to sliders, sat for the second straight sport.
“He’s going to play a massive role for us moving forward,” Boone stated of Wells, including that he’ll begin on Wednesday.
Boone’s remark got here lower than 24 hours after the supervisor declined to debate whether or not he may see Rice, a metrics darling who’s slashing .235/.326/.463 with 17 homers, 38 RBI and a 120 wRC+, doubtlessly getting the majority of the catching reps shifting ahead.
“I don’t know,” Boone replied, bored with discussing the topic on the spot. “We’ll see.”
Ben Rice vs. Austin Wells pic.twitter.com/PBoMbyF9Ig
Nevertheless, Boone was extremely complimentary of Rice’s catching abilities on Monday and Tuesday.
“I feel like he’s getting more and more comfortable back there,” the skipper stated. “I’m seeing increasingly of a presence and confidence and simply the sport form of slowing down for him a bit of bit again there.
“I felt like, initially, when we started putting him in there, he was doing well and handling it, but you could see moments in the game where it would speed up. I haven’t seen that, and he’s been in some tight games too.”
Rice utterly agreed with Boone’s evaluation, saying his improved confidence has made him a extra confident handler and game-caller on the subject of working with Yankees pitchers.
Those self same pitchers, in the meantime, haven’t had an issue with Rice.
“Honestly, it’s like he hasn’t lost a step back there. He does a really good job game-planning,” stated Will Warren, who threw to Rice within the minors and on Monday, when he totaled 6.2 innings, two earned runs, seven strikeouts and nil walks in opposition to Minnesota. “It’s like he’s been catching this whole time and never played first base. So it’s really nice throwing to him.”
One ingredient of Rice’s catching sport that has stood out is his framing.
Rice has caught 350 pitches this season. Whereas that’s not sufficient to be thought of a certified catcher on Baseball Savant, he ranks ninth in Strike Charge (46.3%) and thirty first in Catcher Framing Runs (1) amongst backstops who’ve caught no less than 250 pitches.
For comparability, Wells ranks seventeenth (44.9%) in Strike Charge and fourth in Catcher Framing Runs (7).
J.C. Escarra, the Yankees’ different catcher, leads all of baseball with a 49.5% Strike Charge, and he ranks ninth with 4 Catcher Framing Runs.
“I’m sure once he qualifies, he’ll be up there with the best in the league,” Escarra stated of Rice. “He does a good job. Me and him, we go back and forth on how we could get better working with [Yankees director of catching] Tanner [Swanson] and with Wellsy. It’s no surprise that he’s going to be one of the top framers.”
Rice has graded out properly as a blocker, too. His pop time and arm energy rank close to the underside of the league over a small pattern, however the Yankees worth framing greater than the rest on the subject of their catchers.
Whereas Rice nonetheless has room for enchancment, it’s not a shock to see him getting rave receiving evaluations.
Earlier this season, Swanson stated Rice may very well be the beginning catcher for no less than 10 groups. Rice has put in diligent work on the place since spring coaching, frequently attending pitchers conferences, catching bullpen classes and going by way of each day drills properly earlier than the Yankees ever deliberate on beginning him.
“I just wanted to keep that tool sharp the whole time,” Rice stated. “Because at some point, Big G was going to come back, and I wanted to be as flexible as I possibly could for Boone.”
However Rice additionally identified that he’s all the time been a catcher. That he’s holding his personal again there shouldn’t be a shock.
“It’s my natural position,” Rice famous. “I’ve done it my whole life.”
Initially Printed: August 12, 2025 at 6:24 PM EDT
