Erik Boland: Why Yankees' Ben Rice isn't worried about Home Run Derby messing up his swing
Yankees' Ben Rice celebrates with teammates in the dugout after hitting a home run in the ninth inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field on Monday in St Petersburg, Fla. Credit: Getty Images/Julio Aguilar
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Ben Rice has heard all about it.
Mainly, about some past players who have participated in the Home Run Derby, which the Yankees' slugger officially committed to late Tuesday morning, talking about how the event messed up their swings. How it messed them up for weeks, or even months, afterward.
Rice, who extended his team-leading home run total to 26 with a three-run shot in Tuesday night’s 6-4 loss to the Rays, isn’t worried.
Primarily, he said, because of the change in the event’s format.
Because, for the first time since 2014, the Derby, which has undergone repeated format changes since its inception in 1985, will not be ruled by a clock.
For much of the last decade, for instance, players had a prescribed amount of time per round (the typical number was three minutes) to hit as many homers as they could.
“The timer format is way different than what it is for this upcoming one,” Rice said before Tuesday night’s game. “That one, the timing format, that’s way different. We never, in BP, are swinging like that, back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back. I would be so tired.”
Rice said the one home run derby he participated in, back in 2020 while playing in the Collegiate Baseball League with the Worcester Bravehearts, had a three-minute clock.
But not for multiple rounds.
“That was the format I did. But only one round,” Rice said. “It was just one guy vs. the other guy on the other team. I just did one three-minute round or whatever it was. I can see how that would be totally different for guys (for several rounds).”
For this year’s Derby, the eight participants will begin each round with a set number of swings – 20 in the first round, 15 in the second round and 15 in the two-player final (so far just Rice and Junior Caminero of the Rays have committed).
Every swing, regardless of whether it results in a homer, counts against that swing total. Any player homering on his final swing of a given round does get to keep swinging until a ball fails to clear the wall.
Home run distance will act as the tiebreaker in Round 1 and there will be three swing-offs if there are ties in Rounds 2 and 3.
“I think it’s a positive change,” Rice said of this year’s format.
Tuesday’s announcement was the culmination of well over a month of serious Derby consideration for Rice.
His father, Dan, a former pitcher for Brown University, will throw to him, and Rice wanted to be sure everything was set in that regard before committing.
“I wanted to make sure my dad was ready,” Rice said with a smile. “And I just kind of wanted to give it some time. I knew I wanted to do it. I just wanted to sit on it before impulsively jumping into it.”
He has the endorsement of his manager.
“Super excited for him,” Aaron Boone said. “I know he’s doing it with his dad, so there’s that father-son baseball component to it. Hopefully, it’s a lot of fun and meaningful to the entire Rice family. Hopefully he goes there and does well and it’ll be a springboard for him in the second half.
Rice will try to become the first Yankee to win the Derby since Aaron Judge did it in his rookie season in 2017 (other Yankees to win it are Tino Martinez in 1997, Jason Giambi in 2002 and Robinson Cano in 2011).
On Judge’s memorable night in Miami, he blasted four baseballs that traveled at least 500 feet, the furthest one sailing 513 feet. Judge was even denied a homer as one baseball he sent into orbit clipped the rafters in left-center at loanDepot park (known then as Marlins Park), something locals said at the time had never occurred previously.
But there was a downside to the night. Judge was nursing a sore left shoulder entering the All-Star break that year, aggravated it during the Derby and went through a brutal six-week slump after the event. That skid likely cost him the AL MVP (to the Astros' Jose Altuve). Judge underwent arthroscopic surgery on the shoulder that offseason.
“My swing’s been built over my whole life,” said Rice, who by all accounts is not dealing with anything physical. “It’s not something that’s going to change from basically a few BP rounds.”
Rice said participating in the Derby with his father has been “a lifelong dream of both of ours,” and said it was a “special moment” officially telling him earlier in the day.
“Called him up when I confirmed it a little while ago, and he was pumped up,” he said.
Rice’s dad, clearly, isn’t the only one.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
