Alexander Wilson
The New York Yankees are weeks away from Opening Day, and Aaron Boone still has not committed to a permanent answer at the top of the lineup. Trent Grisham held the spot for most of 2025 and has been the default option heading into camp. But default is not the same as optimal, and the numbers have been screaming the same thing for months now.
Ben Rice should be batting leadoff. Not eventually. Not as a matchup-based option when a lefty starts. Every single day.
The case is not complicated. The case is just being ignored.
What Rice Showed Last Season
Think of the Yankees’ lineup as a chess board. Every piece has a role. The leadoff spot is not about finding the fastest pawn on the board. It is about placing the piece most likely to create chaos before the king has even moved. Rice is that piece.
Last season, Rice’s underlying Statcast data painted a picture that most lineups can only dream about from the top of the order. He ranked in the 92nd percentile or better in barrel rate, average exit velocity, and hard-hit percentage. He hit .255/.337/.499 across the full season with 26 home runs and an .836 OPS. Those are not numbers a traditional leadoff hitter puts up. Those are cleanup hitter numbers attached to a player with legitimate plate discipline.
Now take it a step further. In the 102 plate appearances Rice did spend batting leadoff in 2025, he posted a .911 OPS, hit seven home runs, drove in 17 runs, and struck out just 17 times. A .363 on-base percentage from the leadoff spot. For context, Grisham’s on-base percentage from that spot was .325, and he finished the year with 105 strikeouts on top of his 23 home runs. Both can hit. The question is who maximizes the spot.
Aaron Boone himself has already told you how he feels about Rice in that role. When he slotted him leadoff during the 2025 season, a reporter asked him to explain the decision. Boone’s answer was one word: “Rakes.” He later elaborated after watching Rice control the zone and put up a .333/.520/.833 slash line in five starts at the top of the order: “Benny’s done such a good job up there. He controls the strike zone, and then he’s so dangerous, too.”
That is a manager telling you what the answer is. Now the manager just has to write it in every day.
Why the Lineup Construction Makes Sense
There is a reason elite teams obsess over lineup construction. The top four spots account for the most plate appearances over a 162-game season. If you are not putting your best combination of hitters in those four slots, you are leaving runs on the table. And in a one-game Wild Card series or a do-or-die ALDS game, those runs matter more than any individual stat line.
The Yankees have the pieces to construct one of the most dangerous top-four lineups in the American League. Rice leads off. Aaron Judge bats second. Cody Bellinger bats third. Giancarlo Stanton bats cleanup. Left, right, left, right. Four different hitters who attack pitchers in four different ways, chained together like a generator that never stops running.
The handedness diversity alone is a nightmare for opposing managers. But beyond platoon advantages, the sequencing matters. Rice gets on base. Judge bats in a situation where pitchers cannot afford to walk him, which means they have to throw strikes, which means Rice has already done his job just by being a threat. Every ball put in play by Rice sets the table for the most feared hitter in baseball. And Boone knows it. “I think he’s gonna be one of the really good hitters in Major League Baseball for a while,” he said at the Winter Meetings after Rice’s breakout season.
That conviction is real. Now channel it into the lineup card.
The Honest Case Against Grisham at Leadoff
This is not a take-down piece on Trent Grisham. He had a remarkable 2025. He punished mistakes, brought energy to the top of the order, and those 23 leadoff home runs were a legitimate weapon. The qualifying offer he accepted was earned.
But the reality is that Grisham’s spring has been concerning, and even setting aside the spring numbers entirely, his career profile reveals a hitter whose production fluctuates wildly from year to year. His previous home run high before 2025 was 17. His career OPS before last year was .697. 2025 was a genuine outlier for him, not a new normal. Expecting him to replicate a career-best season while also anchoring the top of the order is an enormous ask.
There is also a simpler argument. Grisham in the five or six hole, facing relievers who have already been through the order once, is a dangerous hitter. He can drive in runs in the middle of a game when pitchers are wearing down. He does not need to set the table. He needs to flip the table. That is a different, and honestly better, use of his skill set.
The Yankees do not lose Grisham by moving him down. They gain a more dangerous version of him while simultaneously upgrading the spot that leads off every single inning he does not start.
The Bottom Line
There is a version of the 2026 Yankees that is terrifying to face. Rice on base, Judge at the plate, Bellinger watching from the on-deck circle, Stanton lurking behind him. That lineup is not theoretical. The pieces are there. The only thing missing is the decision.
Boone already knows what Rice is. He called him “so dangerous” last April. He called him a star last December. “I don’t anticipate it affecting Rice because we think Rice is a star and we think he’s going to mash in the middle of the lineup for a long time,” Boone said when asked about Goldschmidt’s presence.
Mashing in the middle of the lineup is one thing. Mashing at the top of it, in front of Aaron Judge, is something else entirely. Write it in, Aaron. The rest takes care of itself.
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