The New York Yankees are pursuing a former Toronto Blue Jays Gold Glove award winner.
The New York Yankees are apparently still looking to bolster their bench before Spring Training, and an interesting name has surfaced as a possibility.
Chris Cotillo of Mass Live has reported that the Yankees have expressed interest in free-agent first baseman Ty France, who split the 2025 campaign between the Minnesota Twins and Toronto Blue Jays and won a Gold Glove award.
France slashed .257/.320/.360 with seven home runs and 52 RBI over 490 plate appearances this past season, playing in 101 games with the Twins and 37 with the Blue Jays.
His Gold Glove award came out of nowhere, as France was never known as a good defensive first baseman prior to 2025. However, he managed a plus-9 DRS and plus-10 OAA this past year, also registering a plus-7 FRV.
Whatever France did last offseason to work on his fielding, it worked.
The 31-year-old is a lifetime .262/.334/.400 hitter and has played for five different teams since entering the big leagues in 2019, with the bulk of his career coming with the Seattle Mariners.
Ty France. Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images.France made an All-Star appearance with the Mariners back in 2022 after registering a .774 OPS, smashing 20 homers to go along with 83 RBI.
The interesting part about France is that he is not a lefty masher, which is what the Yankees seem to need behind Ben Rice at first base.
France slashed just .244/.298/.389 against left-handed pitching in 2025 and owns a lifetime .743 OPS versus southpaws, barely better than his .731 OPS against righties.
Taking that into consideration, the idea of adding France might be a bit redundant for New York. The entire reason why the Yanks would want to add a right-handed bench bat would be for the purpose of dealing with lefties, but France does not specialize in that.
I suppose that France could serve as a late-inning defensive replacement for Rice, but it remains to be seen if France's 2025 campaign was nothing more than a fluke in the field. Plus, it's not like Rice is an absolutely horrible first baseman.
The Yankees are also evidently looking at signing another outfielder to provide some depth, but with Jasson Dominguez currently serving as New York's fourth outfielder, that could be a bit complicated.
It should also be noted that France himself has played some outfield.
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