Ty France Hits 500 PA Incentive On Padres' Final Day
TLDR: Ty France came to Padres camp in February on a minor league deal and reached his 500-plate-appearance contract incentive in the very last offensive half-inning of the season.
This is a very good baseball story. There's a contract bonus in it, and the whole clubhouse knew about it. On the last weekend of the regular season, the Padres needed their offense to keep turning the lineup over so France could get to 500 trips to the plate. He got there with no time left.
I'm told Ty France had an incentive in his contract for 500 plate appearances. Needed a major showing from the Padres offense this weekend to get there. Whole clubhouse knew it. And he reached 500 in what was the very last offensive half-inning of the season.
This was his last chance, and he got there in the last half-inning the Padres batted all year. One quiet inning earlier in the weekend and he probably doesn't get the bonus. Guys cheering for a teammate's incentive is one of the better things in a clubhouse, and it hits harder when that teammate almost didn't make the team at all.
Go back to February. France signed a minor league deal with an invite to big-league camp and a $1.35 million salary if he made the roster, according to MLB.com. San Diego was a homecoming, since the Padres drafted him in 2015. The strange part is that he was coming off his first Gold Glove, won at first base in 2025 while playing for the Twins and the Blue Jays. A Gold Glove winner still had to fight for a job in camp. By his own account, he was ready to walk away if it didn't work out.
France: "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." t.co/5F5KL5BYyL
He called it sink or swim, and he meant it. If he didn't make the team out of camp, he wasn't sure he wanted to go to Triple-A. That's a guy thinking seriously about whether he'd play again. He got another shot, and he made the most of it.
Ty France, who signed in February on a minor league deal with a camp invite: 500 PAs, .295/.363/.502, 21 HRs, a case for another Gold Glove at first base What a season.
He finished with a.295/.363/.502 slash line and 21 homers, and he has a real case for a second straight Gold Glove at first. For a non-roster invite on a small salary, that's about as good a return as a team can get. San Diego took a cheap flier on a guy it drafted and got one of the best bargains in the league.
Next up is what France's comeback year earns him. He hit, he defended and he stayed on the field long enough to cash the bonus on the last day. He won't be looking for a camp invite this winter. The fun part is that his teammates spent the last weekend rooting for his paycheck and he got it with no innings left.
