The San Diego Padres may not have a highly-rated farm system, but they do have some top prospects to follow tonight.
The San Diego Padres have taken a lot of heat for their farm-system issues, and there’s no doubt that the Padres don’t have at the kind of prospect depth that helps fuel many contenders. But that doesn’t mean the Pads don’t have prospects, and they’ll showcase them tonight against their Chicago Cubs' equivalents in the Spring Breakout game.
AJ Cassavell of MLB.com made some solid points about who to keep an eye on in this game, so let’s see who he came up with and touch on some of the highlights.
Kruz Schoolcraft, RHP
Schoolcraft has been generating a lot of buzz among evaluators and scouts, and for good reason. If you haven’t heard of him yet, you will soon, because at 6’8” he’s a massive hurler who gets downhill on hitters in a hurry. If that wasn’t enough, he also throws in the mid-90s with a plus changeup and a developing slider that he’s quickly turning into another out pitcher.
“He throws a lot of strikes on his fastball,” assistant director of player development Mike Daly told MLB Pipeline's Sam Dykstra earlier this month. “He has feel for his changeup. He should be in a lot of positive counts to be able to throw his slider, be able to get it in zone, get it out of zone. … We will have a much better idea of what that best version looks like towards the end of the year than we do here.”
The catching depth
The Padres have taken a different kind of heat for not developing marquee catching prospect Ethan Salas, who’s struggled offensively and has had trouble staying on the field. He’s still just 19, though, and this is a huge season for Salas that could define his career going forward.
He’s also getting pressure from further down in the prospect pipeline. The Padres drafted a pair of highly-regarded high school catchers, Ty Harvey and Truitt Madonna, so if Salas stumbles they’ll have other prospects coming hard on his heels.
Can the impact arms step up?
Another sore spot for critics of the Padres system is that they don’t have many prospects who are close to the big league level after all those trades made by GM A.J. Preller, but Miguel Mendez and Garrett Hawkins are both scheduled to appear in this game. Hawkins is closer to playing at Petco Park after making a relatively seamless transition to the bullpen, while Mendez is still a starter whose pitching-staff fit is still uncertain right now.