Blue Jays' 2025 trade deadline add finds a home with the San Diego Padres

It was a short stint north of the border for a Gold Glove winning first baseman. Ty France has moved on from the Toronto Blue Jays and has seemingly found a home to play baseball in, in 2026.

News broke on Monday morning (Feb. 16) that France is back with the San Diego Padres, the team that originally drafted him in the 34th round of the MLB draft in 2015.

Blue Jays' 2025 trade deadline add finds a home with the San Diego Padres

France joins the NL West division organization on a minor league deal, with an invite to Spring Training. The-31-year-old reportedly had interest from multiple teams but chose to go back to where it all started. He made his MLB debut for San Diego in 2019, getting into 69 games and hitting seven home runs. France's first "full" season in the majors was in 2020 and after slashing .309/.377/.491 in 20 games with the Padres in the COVID-19 shortened season, he was traded to Seattle. The deal involved France, along with Andrés Muñoz, Luis Torrens and Taylor Trammell going to the Mariners for Austin Adams, Dan Altavilla and Austin Nola.

France's best season came the following year when he produced a 4.2 bWAR hitting 18 home runs with a .291/.368/.445 slash line. He made the All-Star team the following year, producing a 3.0 bWAR but he hasn't been able to replicate those kinds of years since. He's also been moved around quite a bit over the last two season's.

He was sent from the Mariners to the Cincinnati Reds at the 2024 trade deadline, then entered free agency for the first time. The Minnesota Twins picked him up almost a year to the date (Feb. 15, 2026) and he spent half a season there before the trade that sent him to Toronto.

The Blue Jays picked up France, along with Louis Varland in exchange for minor league pitcher Kendry Rojas and outfielder Alan Roden. France only got into 37 games with Toronto, with the majority of that playing time stemming off an injury to incumbent first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Over those 37 games he slashed .277/.320/.372 with a .693 OPS and one home run. He also only had four plate appearances during the Blue Jays' entire playoff run, getting one hit in those four at-bats.

There just wasn't an easy path to playing time for France in Toronto in 2026, but it is somewhat surprising he took this long to find a home. After all, he did take home Gold Glove honors for his defensive efforts in 2025. It's also not the cleanest of fits in San Diego as he'll have to compete for first base and DH reps with Miguel Andujar and Nick Castellanos, who was picked up by the Padres after he was released by the Philadelphia Phillies on Feb. 12. Gavin Sheets is expected to be the primary first baseman with the Padres.

One thing that could have been steering teams away is that the right-handed hitting France doesn't have great split stats. For his career he has hit .266/.328/.415 against left-handed pitchers and .261/.337/.394 against righties. While those are fine numbers, they don't immediately jump off the page, especially if teams are looking for a right handed bat that can come off the bench and crush lefties.

France, will likely have to show he's more than capable of taking control of those matchups if he wants to stick around for a big league gig in 2026.