Padres Have A MAJOR Decision To Make... | Padres Free Agency Update

Jake Bowers bet on himself this winter, and it paid off. Boston is reportedly giving him four years and $58 million per Jeff Passan of ESPN. And that's the first real price of the winter for a first baseman, and the Padres have one of their own on the open market right now. Thai France finished 2026 with 4.5 B war, more than 3.3 Bowers put up. And he did it after coming back to San Diego, the team that drafted him on a minor league deal in February. But his contact numbers tell a different story, though. And any team paying him has to decide which one to believe. So if Boston thinks Bowers is worth that kind of money. What's a fair price for Ty Franz? To get to that deal, Bowers had to say no to a lot of money first. Milwaukee made him the qualifying offer, which is one year at $23.15 million, and he was one of eight players to get it this winter. He, of course, turned it down, even though MLB trade rumors had predicted he would take it. The players have until November 17th to decide on those offers, and Bowers had a four-year deal in hand before that deadline. So that was his bet. Give up on the bigger salary for one season to get guaranteed money for four. Spread over four years, $58 million comes out to $14.5 million a season. That's $8.65 million a year less than the qualifying offer would have paid him next season, in exchange for three more guaranteed years. So for Bowers, the security of four guaranteed years was worth more than a one-year pay raise. It also landed him almost exactly where the models had him. Back in October, Spotrack's market value had Bowers at about four years and $57.8 million. Now hold on to that, because Thai France also has a Spotrack number. The deal is still reported, so neither team has officially announced it yet, but it's probably going to go through. But for Boston, the price doesn't stop at the salary. Because Bowers turned down a qualifying offer, signing him cost the Red Sox their second and fifth highest draft picks per MLB trade rumors. So the Boston Red Sox are not only paying him for four years of play, but they're also losing two draft picks. So that's how bad Boston wanted him. And it wasn't even that long ago that nobody would have paid him at all. John Heyman put it this way. Bowers nearly retired a couple years ago due to struggles, then turned his career around with a huge 2026 season. Does that sound familiar? He got there with 26 home runs and 144 games for the Brewers. Playing mostly first base, his 389 on base percentage sat in the 98th percentile of the league, and Heyman notes he was the NLCS MVP for the Brewers in October. So for a player who almost walked away from baseball, he got his payday, and that matters for the Padres. Cause Ty France also had his own turnaround in 2026, and their seasons look a lot alike until you get into the nitty Nitty gritty details. France played 133 games to Bowers' 144, so start with the slash lines from the 2026 season. France hit .295 with a .363 on-base percentage and a .502 slugging percentage. Bowers hit .266, but he got an on-base percentage at .389 and he slugged .484. So France gets on base by putting the ball in play, and Bowers gets on base by not swinging at bad pitches and walking a lot. France's chase rate shows why. Because it sat in the 21st percentile, so he swings at more pitches outside the zone than most hitters do. And Bowers walked in 16.3% of his plate appearances, which is more than double France's 7.4. The cost of all that patience is strikeouts. Bowers struck out in 27% of his plate appearances, France in 21.6. But when Bowers did make contact, it was louder. A barrel is a ball hit with a mix of exit speed and launch angle that turns into extra base hits. And Bauer barreled 14% of his batted balls to France's 9.1. But France still does hit the ball hard. His hard hit rate sat in the 84th percentile and his sweet spot rate in the 90th. So the angles were fine. Bauer's, of course, hit it hard, too, with a 51.9% hard hit rate in the 94th percentile and more of his hard contact turned into barrels. The home runs follow from there. 26 for Bowers and 21 for France. France got 21 of those and 500 plate appearances, which is 78 fewer than Bowers had. Add it all up into OPS and they land nine points apart. 865 for France and 874 for Bowers. At the plate, it's pretty even. Bowers is ahead with walks and power and France is ahead with hitting batting average and strikeouts. But when it comes to skill with the glove, it's not even close. Outs Above Average, OAA, counts the plays a fielder makes against what an average one would, and France was plus 8 in 2026, while Bowers was negative 7. Fielding Run Value, or FRV, throws those plays into runs, and it says the same thing, plus 10 runs for France and negative 7 for Bowers. That's a 17-run gap on defense alone between two players Savant lists at first base. Of course, none of that is new for France, who won the American League gold glove at first base in 2025 and probably should have in 2026. Poisson's report lists Bowers as a first baseman and outfielder, and across those spots in 2026, his glove cost the Brewers runs. B-War, which his baseball references wins above replacement, puts hitting defense and position into one number. And the glove is a big reason France finished ahead of Bowers in it, even with fewer plate appearances. There is one number, though, that complicates Thai France's season. Weighted on base average, or WOBA, puts every way of reaching base on one scale. France was 373 and Bowers was 381. On results, then, Bowers was eight points of WOBA, better at the plate. And then you get expected WOBA, which is WOBA, but expected based on the values of how hard you hit the ball, the angles you hit the ball, a whole bunch of other things, right? Fowler's expected WOBA was 371, which is just 10 points under what he actually did, but France's expected weighted on-base average was 327, 46 points under his 373. That 327 still sat in the 56th percentile, which is a bit above the average of the league, but nowhere near what his line showed. And his batting average tells the same story. His expected average from that contact was 248 against the 295 he hit. Now, of course, that doesn't erase what he did because the hits counted and the glove is real. But it's the question every team pricing him has to answer. Are you paying for the 2026 results or for the contact behind them? France does have another thing going for him that Bowers didn't. The Padres did not extend France a qualifying offer, so no draft pick is tied to him. So a team that signs him does not have to give up any draft picks. They just got to pay him money. And his price also has to account for where he was a year ago. The Padres drafted him in 2015 and in August 2020 they traded him to Seattle in the deal for Austin Nola. He then became an all-star there in 2022 and in the next few years it kind of got rough for him. Across 2024 and 2025 with Seattle, Cincinnati, Minnesota, and Toronto he hit .245 with a .312 on-base percentage and a .363 slugging percentage and that came over 1,025 plate appearances so it wasn't a small sample. But then in 2026, he hit 295, which is 50 points higher than those two seasons. It's why the minor league deal he took to come back to San Diego paid him $1.35 million once he made the team. He made the roster out of spring training, played 133 games, and turned that deal into the season we just broke down. But that same question still hangs over both of them. Was 2026 the real player? Is this who he is now? For Bowers, the walks and barrels back it up. For France, the gloves back it up, and the contact leaves a big question. Boston already gave their answer for Bowers, and now the market has to give one for France. If you're enjoying this breakdown and all our other breakdowns, please subscribe. We're getting super close to 6,000, and every single one of you who subscribes helps us get closer to our goal. Three different projections are going to give a range for France's 2026 worth on the open market. MLB Trade Rumors projects two years and $32 million for France, which is $16 million a year. Just Baseball has him at two to three years, somewhere between 12 and 17 million dollars a year. And Spotrack, the same site that had Bauer's deal within 200,000, puts France's market value at 16,434,757 a year. And Spotrack lays that out as three years and 49.3 million. So two of the three projections reach three years at the top end. That yearly figure is about 12 times the the $1.35 million he made in 2026. All three sit within $2.5 million a year of the $14.5 million Boston is paying Bowers in either direction. The difference is the years. MLB Trade Rumors has France at two, which is half of what Bowers got. That puts France's projected total at $32 million, $26 million under what Bowers is guaranteed. Even just baseball's high end stretched over three years comes to $51 million. None of the three go higher than $17 million a year, so $20 million would sit $3 million past the top of the range. Those, of course, are projections, not actual offers, and where it ends up is going to be according to the market. $15 million a year would sit above Bowers and just inside Best Baseball's range, and $20 million would be past all three projections. So here's where I land on it. So now that Bowers is off the market, the next first baseman we can get and anyone else can get is Ty France. And a lot of teams need first basemans right now. Not just someone who can hit, but who can play great defense. If signing Ty France means to overpay for him and give him over $20 million a year, he might not be worth it, especially for a player who has been mid most of his career. No offense, love you, but it's true. Except this year was his breakout, but the underlying numbers present a concerning case for decline. As stated, his expected stats sat way below his results, 248 expected average versus 295 he hit, 421 expected slugging against the 502 he put up, not to mention his chase problem as he chased pitches out of the zone at a rate in the 21st percentile, and his bat speed was 72 mph, which is the 48th percentile. So there's a possibility that pitchers may be able to neutralize him by throwing it out of the zone and switching things up on him. Maybe Ty France is just the GOAT now, right? So if it's for a fair price, like $15 million a year, absolutely sign him back, but I would not overpay for him. But then I'll leave it up to you. What is the most the Padres should pay for Ty France per year? Up to $15 million, up to $20 million, or let him walk? You let me know in the comments down below, and please subscribe and have a fantastic rest of your day.