Yankees' Ben Rice is outdoing Aaron Judge in this incredible stat

Billy Heyen

Yankees' Ben Rice is outdoing Aaron Judge in this incredible stat image

Aaron Judge is the best hitter on the planet.

But by one metric, he's not even been the most excellent hitter on the Yankees.

That stat: Hard-hit percentage. And Judge is only second on the Bronx Bombers in that category.

Judge ranks eighth in MLB in the statistic, which measures percentage of balls in play hit at 95 miles per hour or more. Judge has a 56.5 percent rate entering Friday night's game in L.A.

Ranking fifth in baseball in this stat is Ben Rice, at 57.9 percent. He trails just Shohei Ohtani, Oneil Cruz, Kyle Schwarber and James Wood on the leaderboard.

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It's just one example of how Rice has been so special this season.

The Yankees were sort of forced to use him at DH by default once Giancarlo Stanton was too injured to be ready for the season. 

Since then, Rice has taken full advantage of the opportunity.

In more traditional stats, he's batting .242 with 11 home runs and an .851 OPS. Clearly, when he hits the ball, he does damage.

His average exit velocity, barrel percentage, hard hit percentage and expected slugging percentage all rank in either the 97th or 98th percentile in MLB, according to Baseball Savant.

Rice swings and misses a good amount, and he's only so-so at drawing walks.

But don't give him a pitch to hit, because when Rice makes contact, it's very much Judge-ian.

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Billy Heyen

Billy Heyen is a freelance writer with The Sporting News. He is a 2019 graduate of Syracuse University who has written about many sports and fantasy sports for The Sporting News. Sports reporting work has also appeared in a number of newspapers, including the Sandusky Register and Rochester Democrat & Chronicle