He has dimples like Jennifer Garner and the forearms of a longshoreman.
He has three different infielder gloves in his duffle bag, but for now he'll only be wearing the largest one.
In his first year as a full-time player, he slashed 291/368/813, and his stellar numbers surprised no one within the Mariner organization.
He led Major League Baseball with 27 Hit-By-Pitches, but he has no intention of changing his approach.
"I don't know if there's any fixing it," Ty France told Chuck & Buck of his getting hit by pitches. "Trust me, I don't enjoy getting hit. It doesn't feel good. But it's part of my game. It's been a part of my game since college. And it's one of the things I kinda pride myself on. I'm willing to sacrifice part of my body for the team."
But it's not merely about getting to first base that motivates France to take fastballs to those precious thick limbs of his, it's more about not letting pain or even the risk of injury disrupt his rock-steady approach to hitting the baseball to all fields--an approach he learned from his college coach at San Diego State, none other than the legendary Tony Gwynn.
"The game's going to tell you what to do," France spoke of one of the many lessons he learned from the man he calls Coach Gwynn. "If I need to try and power up and hit a homer, I'll do that. If there's a guy on second with no outs, I'm going to try and use that hole to drive the run in. The game will tell me what to do."
But the game will soon outlaw the shift, because not enough Major League hitters remain capable of executing France's old-school approach to hitting. But even that won't shake the 27-year old. "We'll see. I don't know how it's going to play out yet. For me? There's a lot of hits through that hole. But yah, we'll see."
Yep. We'll see. We'll see if Ty France duplicates his numbers from 2021, or if he dwarfs them. With a full year under his belt, a full-time position that he's excelling at defensively, and the trust of his teammates and organization, France may just be getting warmed up.
Hear the entire Ty France interview HERE!