A once-touted top talent, San Diego's catcher prospect now clings to a top-10 spot, his future dimming amid the Padres' win-now strategy.
The San Diego Padres have been in win-now mode for some time. With that aggressive mindset comes a cost – sending away young prospects in exchange for MLB-proven guys that’ll help their chances in making a postseason push rather than prioritizing the future.
This mindset has led to four postseason appearances in the last six seasons, including one in the National League Championship Series in 2022. With back-to-back seasons of at least 90 wins for San Diego, the goal remains the same: win a lot of baseball games.
Though there’s been a lot of success in San Diego in recent years, the future is looking bleaker by the day. The club is struggling to navigate its financial circumstances, losing multiple key players to free agency this winter after being outbid by rival MLB clubs. It’s why their key offseason moves have been re-signing starting pitcher Michael King and signing Korean infielder Sung-Mun Song to a four-year deal.
San Diego will head into 2026 with less talent on its roster than it ended the 2025 campaign with, barring a late push by general manager A.J. Preller to bring in several players via free agency or the trade market to bolster his squad. With a relatively old core, it has been a concerning winter for Padres fans.
Another consequence of constantly pushing for a division title is the cost of doing so in terms of young assets. The Padres have traded several of their top prospects over the years, even trading shortstop Leo De Vries, a consensus top prospect in the league, at last year’s deadline in exchange for closer Mason Miller.
This approach has seen the Padres’ farm system wiped almost entirely. They had just one prospect in Baseball America’s top 100 prospect rankings last week, and they again have just one prospect in Bleacher Report’s top 10 rankings of prospects by position.
Catcher Ethan Salas is the one prospect within the San Diego system that holds much value, but even then, his value has been decreasing over the years. Formerly a top 10 prospect in the MLB, Salas barely made the top 100 prospect list last week and barely finished in the top 10 catching prospects rankings in Bleacher Report’s ranking.
After a great 2023 season among three levels of the Padres’ minor league system, Salas has only seen his statistics fall since then. His OPS. fell to .599 during the 2024 season in 113 games, and it dropped further to .544 in 2025. The 19-year-old only played in 10 games last season due to injury, yet another concern for the once sure-star in the Padres’ system.
Still, there’s much time left for a return to being one of baseball’s top prospects for Salas. He remains a great defensive catcher, improving his framing and ability to manage games from behind the plate. Still just a teenager, Salas has plenty of time to find his bat once more in the Padres system.
The 2026 season will be hugely important for Salas, returning to the field after missing almost all of 2025 and his underperformance in the last couple of seasons. With the Padres' lack of top prospect talent, Salas’ return to the top of the rankings will be huge for the future of the club. If he can’t return to his once top-10 levels, perhaps the smart move for the San Diego front office would be to ship him out while there’s still some hope left.