Ty France put together the kind of offensive season that should at least get a serious Silver Slugger look. Instead, the Padres first baseman wound up on the outside of the finalist conversation, even after finishing with the same .865 OPS as Bryce Harper and Rafael Devers.
That’s the part that makes the omission hard to ignore. First base in the National League was loaded, sure, and there were plenty of strong cases to sort through. But France’s line was too good to wave away.
He hit .295/.363/.502 with 21 home runs and 72 RBIs, production that gave Padres fans more than just a familiar name to point to. The bat played.
The numbers backed it up. And even if the home run total didn’t leap off the page, the overall offensive package absolutely belonged in the discussion.
The Harper and Devers comparison matters because it puts France in recognizable company. All three finished with the same .865 OPS, though they got there in different ways. That doesn’t make their seasons identical, but it does make it tougher to justify leaving France out entirely.
France also finished ahead of Matt Olson’s .823 OPS and Alec Burleson’s .819. His .502 slugging percentage matched Olson’s and topped Harper’s .485. OPS doesn’t settle everything, but it gives a clean starting point, and France was right there with some of the position’s most dangerous hitters.
There’s also the matter of playing time. France did his damage in 133 games, which meant fewer chances to stack up the kind of raw totals that usually catch voters’ eyes. His 21 homers and 72 RBIs look different when you put them next to Harper and Olson, who both played all 162 games.
That volume argument is real. Olson had 625 at-bats.
Harper had 577. Devers had 558.
France had 440. More trips to the plate usually mean more chances to pile up numbers, and that matters in award voting.
The counting stats for the other contenders were louder, too. Olson hit 41 homers.
Devers hit 37. Harper hit 29.
Burleson drove in 116 runs. Jake Bauers also entered the mix with 26 homers and an .874 OPS.
So no, this wasn’t a clean-cut snub in the sense of France being the obvious winner. There were legitimate reasons to lean elsewhere. But finalist status is a lower bar than taking home the award, and France had enough on his side to deserve a spot in that conversation.
He didn’t need anyone to inflate his season into something it wasn’t. An .865 OPS already made the case.
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