Luis Campusano Has Forced Padres' Hand Behind the Plate

[Randy Holt]

The concept of a mess is not unique to any particular facet of the 2026 San Diego Padres roster. They've struggled to piece together starts on the mound, have received mixed performances from virtually every hitter, and have had to handle injury issues with nearly everyone of note. The result of so much clutter, though, is that the mess behind the plate has gone somewhat overlooked.

Freddy Fermin entered the season as the team's No. 1 catcher. After sending Stephen Kolek & Ryan Bergert to the Kansas City Royals prior to last year's trade deadline, it was clear that A.J. Preller was acquiring his top option for the handful of years Fermin remains under team control. With the team unable (or unwilling) to add a suitable backup last winter, Luis Campusano was set to assume duties as the No. 2.

As we sit here at the end of July, that's still how things look. Getting here, though, is where the mess comes in. 

The Padres rank 16th in the league in fWAR accrued by their catchers (1.3). Much of that is propped up by the defensive work of the group, given that the team sits 21st in wRC+ (79) and in the bottom five teams in the league in terms of batting average (.187) and on-base percentage (.283). Fermin has played in only 66 games. He missed time in June while out on the concussion injured list before heading back to the regular IL earlier this month with a head contusion. Campusano missed two months with a fractured toe and has logged time in just 34 contests. That meant that the team's catching picture also featured Rodolfo Durán for 36 games and Blake Hunt for another two over the course of this season.

With things now settled back into featuring Fermin & Campusano, the conversation can take on another turn in pondering whether it should be Campusano atop the depth chart with Fermin as the backup. Such a conversation would be a far cry from where we found ourselves last winter. Fermin as the starter was a sentiment that went undisputed given his defensive competence and a solid stretch of play upon his acquisition from Kansas City. At the same time, few believed that Campusano merited such a guarantee as the Friars' top reserve behind the plate, as he struggled to realize his offensive upside and was coming off some woeful defensive marks the last time we saw him log regular work at the major-league level back in 2024.

It speaks to the gravity of the struggles of the former and the growth of the latter, then, that we're even entertaining this conversation. But that's where we find ourselves with a No. 1, in Fermin, that has worked to a line of only .164/.259/.276, with a 54 wRC+. While he's posted a career-best 9.6 percent walk rate, he's struck out at his highest clip since 2023 (19.8 percent). There's been the occasional impact, indicated by a .112 ISO that is better than either of the last two years, but his offensive performance has been too riddled with soft contact and strikeouts for it to have any sort of sustained realization. 

On the other side of things, Campusano is in the midst of an offensive breakout. It remains a small sample given the injury (107 plate appearances), but his line reads .286/.393/.505 with a gaudy 152 wRC+. His 23.4 percent strikeout rate is reasonable against a 14 percent walk rate, especially when you factor in the power output. Had he been healthy over a full season, we'd likely be framing Campusano as one of the team's best hitters in 2026. As it is, his offensive output is one that far exceeds that of his counterpart behind the plate. 

General narratives around each player would tell us that a justification for keeping Fermin entrenched as the starter over Campusano would be due to his defense. Fermin's chops with the glove have, historically, been far better than the work we've seen from his teammate. After all, the last time we saw Campusano behind the plate regularly was when he turned in a -13 Fielding Run Value. 

This season, Fermin has a FRV of +5. He's been good across the board, turning in at least average marks in each phase that is considered for the position (framing, blocking, throwing). On the other hand, Campusano is at -4 FRV. He's improved his framing metric from -8 to -4 while providing exactly average work with respect to blocking and throwing. In choosing to give more runway to Campusano as the starter over Fermin, you'd be sacrificing some defense. However, it's important to note that such sacrifice is not remotely what it would have been two years ago. You lose something of note when it comes to framing, very little in the other two areas, and then more than make up the difference offensively considering where the two currently reside with the bat. The extent to which Craig Stammen is willing to explore that tradeoff remains to be seen. 

For what it's worth, FanGraphs likes Campusano's share of the work behind the plate to exceed that of Fermin's, giving him 48 percent of the time to Fermin's 42 percent start share. Baseball Prospectus, though, has Fermin at 55 percent of the work to Campusano's 30. Here in reality, they've split the work evenly over the last six contests.

It's entirely possible Stammen is ready to lean into a new workload distribution. Depending on what goes down over the next week leading up to the trade deadline, simply inserting Campusano into the starting lineup more frequently could be one of the biggest additions the Padres make.

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