Padres System Analysis: Prospect Experts Weigh In On Ethan Salas' Future

Editor's note: Padres Mission spoke with two industry experts about the state of the San Diego Padres' minor-league system, what they have done right, what they have done wrong and how they got to this state. This is the final of four articles on the subject.

Part 1: Trades Have Depleted Majority of San Diego's Prospect Capital
Part 2: Despite Farm Ranking, Padres Are Good At Acquiring Talent
Part 3: How Industry Experts Rank San Diego's Internal Prospect Hierarchy

One of the big questions the San Diego Padres face as the trade deadline approaches is this: If they do go after one of the big fish on the trade market, do they deal off the top of the deck and ship out catcher Ethan Salas?

Two baseball analysts are of the opinion that president of baseball operations A.J. Preller would likely hold onto Salas, Padres Mission’s No. 1 prospect and a top-50 prospect in all of baseball.

“I pretty much never say anyone's untouchable, right? Because if the Dodgers call and say, 'We'll give you Shohei Ohtani for Salas,' of course you're doing that,” said Keith Law, senior baseball writer at The Athletic who ranks prospects. “There's always a price that someone else can meet. However, I am not trading Salas unless it is for a world-changing trade.”

Tarik Skubal would certainly be a world-changer. The two-time reigning AL Cy Young Award winner, who is a free agent at the end of the year, would also come at a steep price. What would that look like for the Padres?

“I don't think they can go out and get a Tarik Skubal unless they're willing to trade Ethan Salas—that's just straight up not going to happen,” said Sam Dykstra, a senior reporter at MLB Pipeline. “You could put (pitchers) Miguel Mendez, Kruz Schoolcraft and Kash Mayfield into a package (without Salas) and that's still not going to be enough to get somebody like Skubal, even on a rental. Are they going to be aggressive enough with that? I don't know. I think it's telling that of all the trades they've made, Salas is the one who continues to stick around because I think they really, really like his defense behind the plate and they know that that's going to make him a possible regular at a premium position, and somebody you can dream on for a long time.”

Law and Dykstra have been encouraged by what they have either seen or heard about Salas, a 20-year-old left-handed hitter, this season. Salas missed all but 10 games of 2025 with a stress reaction in his lower back. Combined with offensive struggles in a full season at High-A Fort Wayne in 2024, all of the major rankings dropped him significantly. But he is now back in the top half of top-100 lists now and began this week with a slash line of .284/.353/.422 with seven homers and 36 RBIs. He also has a career-high 14 stolen bases in addition to what made him the top player in the 2023 international free-agent class: elite defense.

“Haven't seen him live (this year), so this is all second-hand, but this is much more the player we thought they had two, three years ago,” Law said. “He's stronger ... back injuries like that, they can wreck you both sides of the ball when you're a catcher. Everything is better. He's hitting the ball harder, his at-bats look better, he's receiving better. He just looks healthy again, too, and he looks 20, not 17 or 18. When I first saw him, he was still 16, and he carried himself like an older player, looked like an older player. Catching a B game with Joe Musgrove throwing and Salas had no issues doing that. ... I think the problem is everyone kind of overestimated, or just forgot, that he was so young, right? Overestimated where he was in terms of his skill level and now that's all catching up.”

While there was enough hype around Salas after being the top international free agent of 2023, that only grew when he reported to the Low-A Lake Elsinore Storm as a 16-year-old and proceeded to put up a .267/.350/.487 slash line with 11 doubles, two triples, nine homers and 35 RBIs in 48 games.

With the end of the season approaching, the Padres promoted Salas to High-A for nine games, then aggressively to the Double-A San Antonio Missions for another nine games. He struggled offensively at those two stops, going 12-for-70 with two doubles and six RBIs. His offensive woes continued in 2024 at Fort Wayne, where he began the year as a 17-year-old, producing a slash line of .206/.288/.311 with 27 doubles, two triples, four home runs and 53 RBIs in 113 games.

Some feel that Salas was overly promoted and his offensive progress stunted as he was playing against 21- and 22-year-olds. The aggressive promotions are something you often hear with some Padres prospects.

“I think it's tough to say if they've been too aggressive in the past,” Dykstra said. “Because you look back at Salas in 2024 and I think that was the classic example of a lot of people in the industry were throwing up their hands as to what exactly happened there. You can even go back a year before, when he was making Double-A in his first full season. A lot of that was to try to make a push for the playoffs in San Antonio. I don't think it was necessarily that they saw him instantly as a Double-A player, but they're like giving him a couple games there at the end of the year. And then he goes to Fort Wayne (in 2024) and really struggles all year and he made some mid-year adjustments. But I think that was a special case.”

Said Law: “I think that was true with Salas and I think him getting hurt last year may have actually saved him a little bit in that it slowed him down. So now, he's at a level that's quite a bit more appropriate to his age. He's 20, Double-A, not a lot of experience there, but he is also super-talented and he's been holding his own. He was the one where I just always like, 'What are you doing?' I will say, I also did not love them changing Jackson Merrill's position and jumping him to the big leagues. If I remember correctly, [he had] little to no experience at Triple-A at that point. That's a lot and the kid handled it like he played the outfield well from Day 1, which I did not anticipate at all. I think I said quite the opposite. ... That's a case of, I would argue, them knowing their players better than I do.”

A promotion to Triple-A in most organizations would seem obvious, but with the Padres’ affiliate in El Paso and a lot of hitter-friendly environments in the Pacific Coast League, it could be beneficial for Salas to remain at Double-A San Antonio and continue to thrive there with an eye on him being the Padres’ Opening Day catcher for 2027.

“There are two arguments to not move him,” Law said. “One, you've moved him so fast, just give him a whole year, let him go around the league a couple times, let pitchers adjust to him and he has to adjust back. And second, talk to any player development guy who's got an affiliate in one of those PCL parks, they hate it. They hate sending guys there because hitters learn bad habits and pitchers start becoming afraid to pitch to contact, or are afraid to just throw certain pitches because between the altitude and the smaller ballparks, it just doesn't work. San Antonio, as I recall, has generally been neutral to a pitcher's park. Let him stay there, even if he's producing, rather than send him to El Paso, where I just don't think guys get a whole lot of value out of playing in that environment.”

Interested in learning more about the San Diego Padres' top prospects? Check out our comprehensive top prospects list that includes up-to-date stats, articles and videos about every prospect, scouting reports, and more!