With Cam Schlittler and Ben Rice, Yankees have extended their championship window

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Cole knew the New York Yankees planned to promote Rice to Triple A immediately afterward, and the franchise stalwart relished his early look at one of the organization’s rising hitters. “I just left thinking this player’s got like a really good handle on what’s going on here, and he just kind of looks head and shoulders above everybody else,” Cole said of his initial impression of Rice, who would make his MLB debut later that year. Before Cam Schlittler debuted last July, Carlos Rodón stood in the bullpen and watched the rookie consistently pump 100 mph. It didn’t take long for the veteran to realize he was witnessing the early stages of an ace in the making. “It was pretty obvious to me that he’s really good at this game,” Rodón said of Schlittler. A year later, Rice and Schlittler are not just breakout stars for the Yankees. They’ve also developed into legitimate MVP and Cy Young Award contenders, respectively. In the process, the homegrown players have meaningfully altered the Yankees’ present — and future, far beyond 2026. While the Yankees remain focused on winning a championship this season with Aaron Judge at the center of everything, Rice and Schlittler have increasingly looked like the type of pillars capable of carrying the club into its next era. Rice, 27, won’t be eligible for free agency until 2031, while Schlittler, 25, won’t become a free agent until 2032. That gives the Yankees at least five more cost-controlled seasons for both players. When the Yankees aggressively pursued Juan Soto in free agency two years ago, part of the thinking was that he could become the face of the franchise once Judge’s prime ended. That, of course, did not come to fruition, as Soto opted to sign for more money with the New York Mets. But given how Rice and Schlittler have developed, the Yankees may already have their next foundational stars in-house — and at a fraction of Soto’s cost ($51 million average annual value). What Soto makes every two weeks is nearly the combined yearly salaries of both players. “To see them both playing at this high of a level, I can’t say I’m surprised,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Now it’s impossible to maybe expect one to be the MVP and one to be the Cy Young, but I’m not surprised. I don’t think any of us are surprised at their performance.” Rice and Schlittler were never supposed to become this, though. Neither ranked among the Yankees’ elite prospects. Neither arrived with the pedigree typically associated with potential franchise cornerstones. Rice was a 12th-round pick out of Dartmouth in 2021. Schlittler was drafted in the seventh round out of Northeastern in 2022. Neither generated much attention outside scouting circles.  “We thought Rice could be an impactful bat, but in terms of projecting if they were both gonna do this in New York and all that stuff, I can’t say that,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said of his young stars. The Yankees might not have landed either player if Northeast area scout Matt Hyde hadn’t identified them years before they became household names. Hyde still remembers the moment he began envisioning Schlittler’s ceiling. Northeastern manager Mike Glavine, Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Glavine’s brother, turned to Hyde one day while they watched Schlittler throw a bullpen and said that he believed, with proper training, the lanky, 6-foot-6 starter would eventually throw 100 mph. But beyond velocity, Yankees evaluators kept coming back to the same trait with Schlittler: He performed his best in the biggest games. Three years before Schlittler authored one of the greatest starts in Yankees postseason history, shutting out the Boston Red Sox for eight innings in Game 3 of the 2025 Wild Card Series, Yankees scout Ricky Castle was in attendance to see him pitch eight scoreless innings against North Carolina State, a team that had an .896 OPS that season. That outing put Schlittler firmly on the Yankees’ radar.  Rice’s path to becoming a Yankee was harder to foresee. Dartmouth canceled two seasons because of the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing him to organize his own opportunities to play, which Hyde calls the “Ben Rice League.” The lack of available data compelled the Yankees to evaluate more than typical skills such as Rice’s swing, but also his ability to handle uncertainty and adversity, a key trait for any major leaguer.   “We knew, in Ben, we were getting a guy who was going to work as hard as he could to maximize his ability, and he had the intelligence to self-assess and know where he had to make adjustments,” Hyde said. Rice’s and Schlittler’s willingness to identify weaknesses and attack them have become defining characteristics in their respective rises. Rice entered this season intent on improving against left-handed pitching and breaking balls. After posting a 104 wRC+ versus left-handers last season, Rice’s 169 wRC+ versus lefties is fifth-best among all lefty hitters. His OPS against breaking pitches has risen from .786 last season to .822 this season. After realizing by the end of last season that few hitters could handle his trio of fastballs when he consistently filled the zone, Schlittler focused on refining his command. Entering his Wednesday start against the Toronto Blue Jays, Schlittler’s walk rate was 4.9 percent, down from 10.2 percent last season. Even though he’s become one of the best starters in limiting walks, they still drive him crazy. He’ll frequently yell into his glove after a walk because he feels he’s letting down his teammates by giving up a free pass, he said.  Max Fried saw firsthand with the Atlanta Braves how a franchise’s trajectory can change when young players accelerate their timelines simultaneously. The Braves’ 2021 championship core wasn’t built solely around established veterans such as Fried and Freddie Freeman. Austin Riley broke out and became an MVP-caliber player, while Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ozzie Albies emerged as foundational stars early in their careers, and Dansby Swanson realized his potential over time. “When you have young guys contributing at a really high level, it just balances out your team,” Fried said. “To be able to have these guys (Rice and Schlittler) contribute at the level they are is insanely valuable.” The economics of modern baseball make internally developed stars essential, even for the Yankees, who annually rank among the top payrolls in MLB. Championship-caliber rosters are far easier to build when MVP- and Cy Young-level production comes from players who are years away from reaching free agency. “In this world with the (luxury) taxes and all that stuff, you need balance,” Cashman said. “When you import a massive free agent, those guys are supposed to finish you off with what you already have from within.” And it’s not just homegrown stars who are important. The Yankees receiving meaningful production from starter Will Warren, an eighth-round pick, matters, too. If shortstop Anthony Volpe and catcher Austin Wells, both first-round picks, eventually develop into the impact players the Yankees envisioned, the organization’s long-term outlook would strengthen even further. Although Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner has steadily increased the payroll, the organization has not operated in the same spending stratosphere as the Los Angeles Dodgers and Mets. That’s why hitting on players like Rice and Schlittler is transformative. “It’s impossible to have $10 (million) to $40 million players at every position,” Boone said. “You’ve got to have real contributors at different levels of your team.” As the core of Judge (now 34), Cole (35) and Giancarlo Stanton (36) grew older, the Yankees repeatedly looked outside the organization for veterans capable of extending their championship window. The moves made often amounted to either temporary fixes or expensive blunders rather than long-term solutions. The promise of the “Baby Bombers” era ultimately fizzled out, and it forced the front office to quickly reassess. Aside from Judge, the Yankees never fully developed another franchise-level star from that group to carry the club into its next era. The situations with Rice and Schlittler feel different to people in the organization. The Yankees believe both players possess not only elite talent but also the adaptability and self-awareness needed to sustain success. “It’s must-watch TV at this point,” Judge said of Rice. “They have that ‘it’ factor, swagger, the confidence to create a little magic,” Cole said of both players. “I’m enjoying it just as much as anybody else.” More importantly for the Yankees, both have underlying metrics that indicate their production is sustainable. Rice ranks near the top of the league in nearly every batted-ball metric, while Schlittler has paired elite strikeout ability with strong command and swing-and-miss stuff outside the strike zone. What has perhaps most encouraged the Yankees internally is that neither player feels satisfied. “They don’t feel like they’ve arrived,” Hyde said. “The standards of the New York Yankees means you’re measured by championships. These guys understand that.” For the first time in years, the Yankees no longer appear solely dependent on external moves to extend the window of an aging core. Rice and Schlittler have also given the club something far more valuable: The possibility that its next era may already be running parallel to Judge’s. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms