Ben Rice and Cam Schlittler have gone from overlooked prospects to the kind of young Yankees who change a team’s future, and they are doing it fast. Rice, 27, and Schlittler, 25, are now being talked about as legitimate MVP and Cy Young Award contenders, a year after each had barely begun to establish himself in the majors.
That rise has made the timing impossible to ignore for a Yankees club that once chased Juan Soto as the answer to what comes next. Rice will not be eligible for free agency until 2031, Schlittler until 2032, and the team has at least five more cost-controlled seasons with each, giving New York something rare in a sport where elite talent usually costs top dollar the moment it proves itself.
The first hints came long before the standings made them impossible to miss. Gerrit Cole first met Rice in June 2024, when Rice caught one of his rehab assignment starts for Double-A Somerset. Cole later said he left believing Rice had a clear handle on everything happening around him and looked head and shoulders above the rest. Rice made his major league debut later that year.
Schlittler’s arrival came with its own warning signs. Before he debuted last July, Carlos Rodón watched him in the bullpen and kept seeing a fastball that hit 100 mph. Rodón said it was pretty obvious to him that Schlittler was really good at the game, and the right-hander has only sharpened that impression since breaking in.
The Yankees have known for some time that both players were more than ordinary finds. Rice was a 12th-round pick out of Dartmouth in 2021, and Schlittler came in the seventh round out of Northeastern in 2022. Northeast area scout Matt Hyde identified both years before they became household names, giving New York two players whose rise now looks like scouting success turning into roster luck.
Aaron Boone said he was not surprised to see both playing at this level, and added that while it is impossible to expect one to become the MVP and the other the Cy Young winner, their performances have not caught the club off guard. Brian Cashman was more candid about the scale of what has happened, saying the Yankees believed Rice could be an impactful bat but could not have projected both players doing this in New York.
That matters because the Yankees have spent recent years trying to buy certainty at the top of the roster. Soto left for the Mets for more money two years ago, after New York had pursued him as a possible future face of the franchise once Aaron Judge’s prime faded. Rice and Schlittler are not that kind of external fix. They are homegrown, inexpensive for now, and suddenly central to the Yankees’ next stretch.
The tension for New York is that the upside is real, but the clock is too. Rice and Schlittler are not eligible for free agency for years, and the team’s leverage over their contracts is obvious. The Yankees have found two breakthrough players who can shape a lineup and a rotation, but they will have to turn that into a contender before those cost-controlled seasons start to disappear.
