The San Diego Padres went from being one of the most inconsistent offensive teams in baseball in the first half of 2026 to entering the postseason as the hottest team in MLB. Through the best of times and the worst of times, a rare constant in the batting order was a player who started the season on a minor league contract.

First baseman Ty France revealed earlier this season that he was almost done with baseball as a whole in the offseason that followed a Game 7 loss in the 2025 World Series while a member of the Toronto Blue Jays.

“I still felt like I had something to offer to this game, to a team,” France said via AJ Cassavell of MLB.com. “I went into spring training with the thought, ‘There’s a chance this could be it. If I don’t make a team out of camp, I don’t know if I want to go to Triple-A.' It was just a sink or swim kind of thing. Thankfully, it worked out.”

France, who was born in West Covina and was coached by the late, great Tony Gwynn at San Diego State University, was originally drafted by the Padres in the 34th round of the 2015 draft. He was then traded to the Seattle Mariners, where he earned an All-Star selection in 2022 (and led MLB in hit by pitches twice during his tenure), but failed to get back to familiar offensive form until 2026.

Going into his Padres reunion, he had a .262 career batting average with an OPS of .735 in those seven seasons. Across the 2026 campaign season, he hit .295 with an OPS of .865.

In terms of Weighted Runs Created Plus, a stat that attempts to quantify a player's offensive value measured in runs while taking park factors into account, France's ranking of 141 (with 100 being league average), was fifth among all first basemen in 2026 with a minimum of 500 plate appearances.

Per Spotrac's market value projections, France is slated to earn over $16 million annually on a three-year, $49.3 million deal as he continues to test the open market as a free agent. According to ESPN's Kiley McDaniel, however, France is projected to earn about $3 million less over just one season.

"As a right-handed-hitting first baseman who's now 32, his profile will hurt him in free agency, but you also need to consider that he was among the luckiest hitters in baseball relative to his expected statistics," McDaniel wrote.

The luck in question deals with the dissimilarities of France's expected Weighted On-Base Average (xwOBA) versus his actual wOBA, a stat that combines the differing values of hitting outcomes into one number. In terms of that differential, France ranks fifth in MLB.

Whether it is luck, skill or a little bit of both, there is no question that the Padres would be lucky to have France and his talents back in 2027 at the right price.

If it's closer to McDaniel's projection, it would be a no-brainer move for San Diego.

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