It seems that every year, despite how unbearably frugal they are, the Minnesota Twins manage to land a really good player in free agency.
Rather than dwell on how a smart ownership group that actually cared would use that as a jumping off point to make more moves, let’s try to see the in the Twins signing Ty France — and you don’t need to look very hard to see some good stuff.
France was the team’s annual veteran free agent flier (along with Harrison Bader) and it took less than 20 games for the move to age tremendously well.
On Monday France was named the AL Player of the Week, which is stunning not only because it means the Twins made a good move but is is baffling considering how terrible everything else around the team has been.
Ty France is already playing award-winning baseball for the Twins
So far this season France is slashing .298/.355/.456 with an .811 OPS, which already ranks as the fifth-best of his career.
All signs point to that getting even better, even if the Twins aren’t doing anything to take advantage of his excellent play.
VIVE LA FRANCE! 🇫🇷
Congrats to Ty France on being named AL Player of the Week! pic.twitter.com/jo1xxQjl0V
— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) April 14, 2025
Minnesota is off to one of its worst starts ever, and is cratering hard after a historic crash out at the end of last season.
The Twins went from having a near-90 percent chance of making the playoffs to missing the postseason and finishing in third place, all over the course of a single month.
That bad brand of baseball has bled over into this season and it might not be long before it starts costing jobs. France won’t be on that list, though, as he’s one of the lone bright spots in the utter darkness of the team’s season.
Of course, while he won’t be on the chopping block anytime soon the better he plays in contrast to the team around him will ultimately kick up trade rumors.
It’s a small sample size but France is already following in the footsteps of guys like Donovan Solano, Michael A. Taylor, and Carlos Santana as low-risk additions that ended up having high-upside.
Hopefully the team around him can figure things out, but at the very least Twins fans have something to be happy about in what is otherwise a sea of sorrow.
