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Yankees superstar first baseman Ben Rice has arguably been the best first baseman in the American League this season, and a top 10 hitter in all of baseball. Rice in 65 games has posted a .293 batting average with 19 home runs, 47 RBI’s, and a .998 OPS. But somehow, when it comes to fan voting for the American League All Stars ahead of this year’s All Star Game in Philadelphia, Rice is currently not leading in the rankings as the American League’s starting first baseman. Toronto Blue Jays rival, Vladimir Guerrero Jr, currently leads all AL first basemen in the current fan voting poll.

Guerrero Leading Rice by over 90K Votes

Guerrero has 603,014 votes, and Ben Rice has 509,830, per the ballot results tweeted by Bob Nightengale of USA Today. Guerrero is having a down year by his standards, currently posting a .280 batting average with just 3 home runs, 27 RBI’s, and a .738 OPS. Astonishingly, Guerrero leads Rice by over 90,000 votes, considering it’s been a tale of two seasons between these two players.

One of the more valued metrics for measuring today’s talent, WAR (Wins Above Replacement), has Rice listed at 2.3 WAR and Guerrero at just 0.7. With a 1.6 WAR differential value between Rice and Guerrero, it leaves many scratching their head at these latest polling results, as well as the legitimacy of fan voting when it comes to the All-Star Game. One could even possibly argue that Rice has been the best first baseman in all of baseball this season.

Rice’s season successes, ironically, are most recently highlighted by a go-ahead two-run home run in yesterday’s game against the Toronto Blue Jays that resulted in an 8-3 Yankees win and also a series win at the Rogers Centre, their first series win in Toronto since 2023, according to Greg Joyce of the New York Post. Rice has been the Yankees’ best hitter in Judge’s absence, and even before Aaron Judge’s rib cage injury, Rice was showing to be the Yankees‘ best hitter at that time, and still to this day.

Rice Has Only Gotten Better Since His 2025 Campaign

Rice (age 27) is coming off a strong 2025 campaign in which he hit 25 home runs with a .836 OPS as he transitioned more to the Yankees’ everyday first baseman, along with shared playing time with 38-year-old 1B/DH Paul Goldschmidt, whom Rice has viewed as a big mentor in his professional growth and development as a hitter and a first baseman. Rice and Goldschmidt are having strong seasons again in 2026, with Rice having taken that next step as a power hitter.

Vlad Guerrero Jr on the other hand, has lost much of his power so far this year, coming off a 4.6 WAR season in 2025 where he hit 23 home runs but had a monster 2025 postseason crushing 8 home runs with 15 RBI’s in 18 games as the Blue Jays would then clinch the American League Pennant and miss clinching a World Series berth, in which they lost to the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games, per StatMuse. 

Where things stand now on June 15th, Ben Rice not only deserves to be a 2026 All-Star but should rightfully be the starting first baseman for the American League. Such voting will also spark discussion of future voting rules. Whether fans should get a vote at all given team biases, but regardless of where those discussions go, it can’t be unnoticed how good Ben Rice has been as he transforms into one of the next prolific power-hitting first basemen, and one of the best hitters in the entire sport in the prime of his career.