Ty France walked to the back fields at the Peoria Sports Complex one Monday morning in mid-February with his equipment bag slung over his shoulder.
He had just signed a minor-league contract and was about to begin his quest to make the roster at a position where it was not entirely certain the Padres had a need.
There was no way to know on that day — or even on Opening Day or Memorial Day — how important France would be.
He became the player — above all the others who contributed to a 91-win season and third consecutive postseason appearance — about whom this was uttered:
Where would the Padres be without him?
France finished the season with a .295 batting average and .865 OPS, numbers that would officially rank sixth and seventh, respectively, in the National League had he been to the plate just two more times.
France hit a career-high 21 home runs, and his 43 multi-hit games were third-most on the team despite four players having started at least 35 more games than he did. Beginning with his four-RBI game on April 27, in which he twice gave the Padres a lead in a 9-7 victory over the Cubs, a week hardly ever passed without him providing a crucial at-bat in a victory.
“He has been our MVP, no question,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said several times this season, echoing what seems to be a unanimous sentiment around the organization.
France is the greatest of The Replacements — a group of Padres players whose footprints were the only ones in the sand for a good stretch this season.
“That’s those quote-unquote complementary pieces to the big boys,” said Padres vice president of professional scouting Pete DeYoung. “Because we all know the big boys have got to drive it, but if you can have contributions from some other spots that raises the whole deal.”
There was France. There was Walker Buehler, an accomplished veteran signed to a minor-league deal who ended up making 32 starts. There was Samad Taylor, a diminutive journeyman minor leaguer who became known as “the spark plug.” There was Luis Rengifo, the recently released infielder who replaced the injured Taylor and kept the spark going. There was Dustin Harris, who was promoted at the end of August and was the Padres’ No.2 hitter by the middle of September. There was Austin Hays, who has hit .380 with a .956 OPS against left-handers in his seven weeks with the club.
It has been true during the organization’s run of five postseason appearances in seven years that they go as their star players go. That is the case with most top teams.
But this season, it would not matter that Jackson Merrill and Fernando Tatis Jr. produced at an MVP-caliber level after the All-Star break had France, Taylor and Rengifo not pitched in to row the life raft in the first half.
Tatis did not hit a home run until the end of May. Merrill had a .613 OPS on July 18. Manny Machado ended up batting .217.
This would have been 2023 all over again — a talented group at which the baseball world would have shaken its head — without The Replacements stepping up.
“It takes a whole village to do it, and we’ve been showing it this year,” a shirtless and booze-drenched Machado said amid Thursday’s playoff-clinching celebration. “There’s been a lot of guys who contributed in so many different ways.”
How it happens
It might be natural to think the Padres got lucky to have all these players come in and contribute at such a high level.
And there was certainly an element of good fortune.
But there is a history to the signing of each one of The Replacements that reflects the work done behind the scenes.
Sometimes that work doesn’t pan out. It cannot be ignored that the Padres are paying Lucas Giolito nearly $3 million for the 29⅔ innings he gave them this season.
But sometimes there is gold in the pan.
According to several people around the league, few teams mine for players like the Padres.
Their scouting staff is among the biggest in MLB. And their personnel department is run by a man who hardly sleeps and is in nearly constant communication with the men he has charged with helping him find talent.
“It starts with A.J. and his mentality,” DeYoung said. “It’s like a relentless pursuit of players at all times.”
What that looks like in A.J. Preller’s baseball operations department is a lot of talking in addition to a lot of scouting.
Preller is described by his lieutenants as a listener.
He is also a man of deep convictions about a lot of things.
“He forces you to be on your toes,” DeYoung said. “He’s open-minded. But he also is demanding and, like, you better know what you’re talking about.”
Preller is collaborative at his core.
He believes the best ideas can come from anywhere and that the best idea wins.
And these men share ideas, be it during meetings that can run to midnight during spring training or in the middle of games or on the phone at all hours.
“What’s great about A.J. is he listens to his scouts,” DeYoung said. “He has given us a voice, and it’s a responsibility that we’ve got to keep providing good information. But it’s nice to be in an environment where you know your work is being listened to and contributes to the overall result on the field.
“We’ve got a lot of guys, and they’re working hard. When they know their work is being counted on, or at least read and heard, then it just gives them more motivation to go find that next guy.”
Every executive, scout and coach heaps the bulk of the praise on the players for how this season has turned out.
But those players are not here without someone fighting for them to be here.
“Our staff is great,” Preller said. “People look sometimes at the bigger move, bigger trade, bigger free agent signing. Those get a lot of the attention. But the job of your pro scouting department is roster building. … We get as excited about minor-league free agency or taking three guys in a Rule 5 draft or a minor-league phase of a Rule 5 draft. We have people that just enjoy player acquisition and giving guys opportunities and betting on the right players.”
The stories behind how The Replacements came to be Padres and eventually play such outsized roles show how true that is.
France comes back
DeYoung was the Padres’ West Coast cross-checker in 2015, when the team drafted France out of San Diego State in the 34th round.
And DeYoung was the one this offseason pounding the table for the Padres to sign him. He had ample backup from the team’s research and development department, which loved France’s defense at first base and what it saw in the underlying numbers from a 2025 season in which he batted just .257/.320/.357 for the Twins and Blue Jays.
DeYoung visited with France and watched him hit multiple times this offseason. Actually, he did so the previous winter when the Padres were considering signing France as well.
France was certainly interested in returning to the team he debuted with in 2019 and had been traded from in 2020. And fortunately for the Padres, no other team offered him a major league deal.
When it came time to parse through the minor-league offers he received, the fact he would be close to his Orange County home while his wife was pregnant with twins played a significant role in France’s decision.
France made the team. By late April, he was starting regularly. By the end of June, he was starting every game. He finished the season as the biggest free-agent bargain of 2026 based on cost ($1.35 million guaranteed plus $650,000 in performance bonuses, the last of which was triggered when France reached 500 plate appearances on Sunday) and production (3.5 WAR).
“That one I’m proud of,” DeYoung said. “Just because I knew the person, knew the professionalism. And he was still hungry to prove he still had something left. And he wanted to be a Padre.”
Winning Walker
The day the Padres officially inked France, they came to terms on a minor-league pact with Buehler that would guarantee him $1.5 million if he made the opening-day roster and would max out at $4 million if he stayed on the roster all season.
Buehler is now in line to make a postseason start.
For all the prescient maneuvers the front office and coaching staff made to nurse the pitching staff through rough times, the Padres would have been sunk without Buehler’s 153⅔ innings.
Considering he had posted a 4.93 ERA for two teams in 2025 and given the concerns over his diminished velocity, his signing was most certainly a flier.
But it was made with confidence because of the work done by Padres scout Keith Boeck and Bud Black, a former Padres manager who is now a special assistant in baseball operations. They saw Buehler throw and endorsed what could be accomplished with Padres pitching Ruben Niebla getting under the hood.
And there was another factor the Padres had been made to feel comfortable with: Buehler’s attitude.
The 32-year-old right-hander’s strong will and confidence is a big component of the success he had before his second Tommy John surgery in 2023 and a driver in his comeback. But the Padres had questions about how he would handle being a spring training invitee, having to earn his way on the roster and potentially being a back-of-the-rotation piece.
That is where they leaned on A.J. Ellis, a longtime catcher for the Dodgers who has been a special assistant in baseball operations for the Padres since 2019. Ellis still has extensive ties with Dodgers players and coaches, and through those relationships became convinced Buehler, who won two World Series rings, prioritized winning and was all-in on being open to change and a potentially different role.
Samad the spark plug
There was no reason to be particularly enthralled with Taylor when he became a free agent this offseason. A solid Triple-A performer, he had hit .205/.272/.260 in 83 career plate appearances over three brief major league stints with the Royals and Mariners.
It was the last of those stops that led him to the Padres.
Special assistant Scott Servais, who managed the Mariners from 2016 to 2024, vouched that Taylor was a good worker, could run and play multiple positions and had the potential to be a better hitter than he had shown in the majors. Largely based on that commendation, the front office dug in and did some research. Scouts Spike Lundberg, who works Seattle, and Spencer Graham, whose main area of focus is sixth-year free agents, attested to Taylor’s upside.
The Padres moved quickly. The day Taylor became a free agent in January, the Padres reached out to his agent and offered a minor-league deal with an invitation to spring training.
Taylor was initially recalled from Triple-A on June 3 to take the roster spot of Nick Castellanos, who was designated for assignment.
The idea was that he and fellow call-up Jase Bowen would bring energy on the field and in the dugout, play some left field, lay down some bunts and run the bases in a way few Padres veterans could. They were given explicit instructions: Be yourselves.
And then Taylor became something else.
He entered his first game as a pinch-hitter, went 0-for-2 and proceeded to hit .342 with an .846 OPS over his next 22 games. Of those, 18 were starts. Of the final 11 starts he made in that stretch, 10 were as the No.2 hitter.
Then Taylor strained his oblique and went on the injured list on July 8.
New spark
The Padres did significant background work on Rengifo with an eye toward possibly signing him this offseason. They loved what they heard.
Servais was familiar with Rengifo from all the time he had seen him with the Angels. And Padres assistant general manager Josh Stein believed in the switch-hitting infielder who could also play left field.
Rengifo ended up signing with the Brewers and, in the midst of struggles that led to him being released in June, went 5-for-8 against the Padres during a series in Milwaukee in May. Stein was in the stands, effectively shaking his head.
So when Rengifo was released, Stein was the main driver in the Padres signing him to a minor-league deal.
Rengifo was willing to spend two weeks in Triple-A, but he had an opt-out after that. And before he joined El Paso, he went to the biometrics lab at Point Loma Nazarene University so the Padres could determine if there was something that might help him improve.
They found that little something. So they sent Rengifo to the Peoria Sports Complex. There, Rengifo worked with minor-league hitting coach Brian Betancourth, who knew Rengifo from their time with the Angels, and Robbie Price of the Padres’ sports science department.
After a few days in Arizona, Rengifo played the first of what ended up being six games in Triple-A. He was approaching his opt-out date when Taylor went on the IL.
Rengifo, who hit .250/.307/.382 from 2019 to ‘25 with the Angels and .205/.280/.254 in 57 games with the Brewers this season, proceeded to hit .296/.380/.416 over a 37-game stretch. As the Padres continued to struggle finding a No.2 hitter, he batted .290 in 15 starts in that spot.
Harris rakes
Something else happened the same day Rengifo was called up.
Nick Ennis, a baseball operations vice president, had been talking with an agent about a minor-league outfielder who had just opted out of his contract with the White Sox.
Out of that conversation, Ennis brought the idea of signing Harris to Preller and Stein, who recalled a text he had received a few months earlier when Harrris had been initially placed on waivers by the White Sox.
That missive was from Padres special assistant Allen Craig, who had seen Harris become available and began watching video. Craig texted Stein and said he liked what he saw, especially the swing.
Harris ended up signing a major league contract0 with the Astros in April, but had not been called up by July and opted out of his deal.
The Padres had already done a fair amount of work looking at Harris, but that day in July they got back on the phone. Triple-A manager Pete Zamora gave rave reviews from having watched him from across the field.
On July 8, Harris signed. He not only hit .350 with a 1.029 OPS in 29 games with the Chihuahuas, the Triple-A staff noted that he ran out routine ground balls, took every extra base and made every play in the outfield.
On Aug. 24, the Padres felt they had no choice but to bring him up and see what he could do.
By Sept. 12, having gone 11-for-31 in his first 13 games, he was the Padres’ new No.2 hitter.
They went 12-3 with him in that spot, and he will almost certainly be there when they face right-handed starters in the postseason.
And here they are
It will be noted at various times over the next month, depending on how far into October the Padres advance, that they have the major leagues’ ninth-highest payroll.
It should also be noted that five of the players who turned in indispensable performances have cost the Padres around $7 million altogether.
The Padres having payroll limitations and absolutely having to find bargains played a role in The Replacements getting their opportunity.
“We knew you know from a budget standpoint we weren’t going to have a lot of flexibility in dollars to work with — the last few offseasons and this one as well,” Preller said. “So we were fishing in those waters.”
It’s not that the Padres haven’t had successes like this before. Gavin Sheets played a big role in 2025 after being signed to a minor-league deal. Jurickson Profar, David Peralta and Donovan Solano made enormous contributions to the Padres’ 93 wins in 2024.
The Padres got 5.7 WAR in a combined 345 games from that trio in ‘24. This season, they got 5.9 WAR in 243 games from France, Harris, Rengifo and Taylor and another 1.5 WAR from Buehler.
“A lot of credit goes to AJ for constructing the roster the way he has,” manager Craig Stammen said Sunday after the season finale. “We’ve got a lot of depth in it. And then also our pro scouting department for finding these guys, and then the Triple-A staff for grooming them, getting them hot and then making sure they’re available for the big-league team. It takes the whole organization to have a season that has 91 wins. … The organization has been humming in the right direction and has been for a few years, and hopefully we can keep it going.”
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