The San Diego Padres have prospects who are turning heads, and Ethan Salas and Kash Mayfield are especially impressive.
The San Diego Padres don’t get much credit for their prospect pipeline, mostly because GM A.J. Preller keeps trading them. But the Padres have some impressive prospects in their system, and several of them aren’t that far from San Diego. Sam Dykstra of MLB.com did a rundown, so let’s see who the top two are and why they’ve been garnering attention.
Ethan Salas, C
Six months ago, you could have made book on Salas being a disappoinmen ready to be labeled a bust. But now he’s healthy, and Salas is still only 20 and he’s starting to hit like he belongs in San Diego.
Specifically, Salas’s slash line as of the end of this week was .320/.396/.546 with five homers through 28 games for Double-A San Antonio. According to Dykstra, he’s hecome a “nightly offensive highlight reel full of hard-hit balls,” and Salas has always been a plus plus defender.
“Ethan's work ethic is elite,” said San Diego assistant director of player development Mike Daly. “It’s a credit to our high performance team, our trainers, our medical group in terms of being able to know what that balance was and when to push him. He spent a lot of time in Arizona working on his body, letting it recover, but also adding strength, good strength. It's been great to see some of that reward for all his hard work pay off here early in 2026.”
The Padres have done this by decreasing Salas’s load at the plate. They opened up his stance up, and that’s led to the kind of harder contact that’s turning heads.
“With that toe tap, he’s been on time more, which is certainly how he's still controlling the strike zone,” Daly said. “I think for that reason, coupled with all the work that he did last year, he's hitting the ball more consistently, and he's hitting the ball harder.”
Oh, and there's one other thing that's perhaps the biggest factor of all.
“The biggest thing,” Daly added, “is just his health.”
Kash Mayfield LHP
Mayfield had shoulder trouble that limited his first full season at Single-A Elsinore, but he’s been making ups for lost time. His stats and High-A Fort Wayne include a a 1.82 ERA, 0.85 WHIP and 26 strikeouts in six starts (24 2/3 innings) entering this week, according to Dykstra. His .107 average-against is fourth-lowest among Minor Leaguers with at least 20 frames in 2026.
His fastball continues to sit in the low 90s, but Mayfield has a low-80s change that makes it play, and suddenly he’s poised to move up the ladder a notch.
“He's made every start up there in Fort Wayne, which gives him the opportunity to work on his arsenal,” Daly said. “He has much more clarity in terms of his attack plan. I think it's just part of the natural progression of him getting more physical, stronger, and having more and more clarity about what it looks like to get on the mound to go attack hitters and get them out.”