But we have Jose Miranda at home!
According to the Phil Miller of the Star Tribune, the Minnesota Twins have agreed to a one year contract with first baseman Ty France. He will take the roster spot that was vacated when the Twins DFA’d Brent Headrick earlier today.
Twins have signed former Mariners All-Star IF (mostly 1B) Ty France to a one-year contract. Pending physical. Takes Headrick’s roster spot, and is an interesting addition to 1B mix. .813 OPS in 2021.
— Phil Miller (@MillerStrib) February 11, 2025
France had a very strong run from 2020-2022 when he hit .285/.355/.443 with a 129 wRC+ with the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres, though he has been decidedly worse in the two seasons since then. Over the past two seasons, France has hit .243/.323/.366 for a perfectly average 100 wRC+. It’s not exactly what you want from a first baseman.
The Twins must feel there’s additional production they can get out of France, particularly on the power front where he’s hit just 25 home runs in nearly 300 games over the past two years. A contact-oriented first baseman would seem to overlap with Jose Miranda’s skillset, though defensively Miranda has always looked more comfortable at third base rather than first. France will be in the mix for playing time at first, while allowing Rocco to deploy an all-righty infield mix against left-handed starting pitchers with Miranda moving to third and Royce Lewis to second base, where he is expected to get more action this season.
Options were limited for a team with a limited budget, but the addition of France continues to diversify their infield portfolio, if you will. Between Royce Lewis, Jose Miranda, Edouard Julien, Brooks Lee, Willi Castro, and to a lesser extent Austin Martin, Mickey Gasper, and top propsect Luke Keaschall, the Twins have a lot of offensive question marks around the infield. They aren’t all going to work out, but the Twins only need two or three of them to hit in order to make a run for October.