{"id":101077,"date":"2025-09-17T07:50:02","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T07:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=101077"},"modified":"2025-09-17T07:50:29","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T07:50:29","slug":"yankees-ben-rice-is-the-unluckiest-hitter-in-mlb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=101077","title":{"rendered":"\ud83d\udea8\ud83d\udea8\ud83d\udea8 BEN RICE CURSE: Yankees\u2019 rookie emerges as MLB\u2019s unluckiest hitter, striking out at the worst possible moments, leaving fans and analysts scratching their heads as every near-hit turns into heartbreak, while whispers grow that a \u201ccurse\u201d might shadow his rookie season, making every at-bat a high-stakes drama that could define his career before it even starts"},"content":{"rendered":"<section id=\"article-body\">Ben Rice is having a strong season for the New York Yankees.Turns out, it could be even better.<\/p>\n<p>Rice, by one measure, has been the unluckiest hitter in MLB this season.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a statistic called Weighted On Base Average, or wOBA. It factors in strikeouts and walks along with batted balls to come up with a number that conceptually can be more telling than batting average or on-base percentage are on their own.<\/p>\n<p>Statcast&#8217;s exit velocity, barrel and launch angle data can combine with wOBA for an expected wOBA &#8211; or xwOBA. Essentially, what you&#8217;d think a player&#8217;s wOBA should be based on their batted ball data.<\/p>\n<p>Rice has the largest negative differential between his wOBA (.347) and xwOBA (.406) in all of baseball.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/library.sportingnews.com\/styles\/crop_style_16_9_desktop_webp\/s3\/2025-09\/USATSI_27074512.jpg.webp?itok=iswikxOy\" alt=\"Yankees' Ben Rice is the unluckiest hitter in MLB image\" \/><\/p>\n<p>That suggests, essentially, that Rice has been very unlucky.<\/p>\n<p>In spite of that, Rice has had a great season. He has an OPS of .805 and has belted 23 home runs.<\/p>\n<p>His average exit velocity of 93.4 miles per hour ranks in the 96th percentile of MLB, though. His hard-hit percentage of 56.3% is in the 99th percentile.<\/p>\n<p>Those suggest Rice should be putting up even better traditional statistics than he already is.<\/p>\n<p>If anything, it&#8217;s super encouraging for the Yankees. Rice has been a crucial component to the lineup this season, and there&#8217;s reason to believe his output will only get better as time goes on.<\/p>\n<p>At some point, the luck will turn for Rice, and it&#8217;ll be even that much scarier for teams trying to get out the Yankees&#8217; slugger who wears Juan Soto&#8217;s old No. 22.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rice is having a good season anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":101080,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\ud83d\udea8\ud83d\udea8\ud83d\udea8 BEN RICE CURSE: Yankees\u2019 rookie emerges as MLB\u2019s unluckiest hitter, striking out at the worst possible moments, leaving fans and analysts scratching their heads as every near-hit turns into heartbreak, while whispers grow that a \u201ccurse\u201d might shadow his rookie season, making every at-bat a high-stakes drama that could define his career before it even starts - News 365<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=101077\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\ud83d\udea8\ud83d\udea8\ud83d\udea8 BEN RICE CURSE: Yankees\u2019 rookie emerges as MLB\u2019s unluckiest hitter, striking out at the worst possible moments, leaving fans and analysts scratching their heads as every near-hit turns into heartbreak, while whispers grow that a \u201ccurse\u201d might shadow his rookie season, making every at-bat a high-stakes drama that could define his career before it even starts - News 365\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Rice is having a good season anyway.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=101077\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"News 365\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-17T07:50:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-17T07:50:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/LUU-1-107.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"MrLuu\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"MrLuu\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=101077\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=101077\",\"name\":\"\ud83d\udea8\ud83d\udea8\ud83d\udea8 BEN RICE CURSE: Yankees\u2019 rookie emerges as MLB\u2019s unluckiest hitter, striking out at the worst possible moments, leaving fans and analysts scratching their heads as every near-hit turns into heartbreak, while whispers grow that a \u201ccurse\u201d might shadow his rookie season, making every at-bat a high-stakes drama that could define his career before it even starts - 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