San Diego Padres top prospect Ethan Salas has been sidelined with a back injury, leaving him out for months. Salas has been off the field since April, though medical personnel have finally cleared the catcher to get back behind the plate.
He played 10 games for Double-A San Antonio this season before getting injured, suffering a lower back stress reaction.
Considering how much time the young catcher has already missed, president of baseball operations A.J. Preller, made it clear that the organization will find additional at-bats for the prospect.
“He’s going to be able to catch up in at-bats,” Preller told the San Diego Union-Tribune.
“We would have loved for Ethan to have had a minor league season, but we’ll do our best to get him those at-bats this offseason against real competition, so he can still look up in the 2025 season and he’s going to have gained something from it.”
Before getting hurt, he made 41 plate appearances, hitting .188/.325/.219 with no home runs and only five RBIs. Salas broke out while playing in Single-A, showing an impressive ability to hit the ball and already possessing impressive management behind the plate.
San Diego quickly worked him up the minor league pipeline in 2023 as he went from Single-A, High-A, and Double-A in one season. Last season, he played most of his time with High-A, and the Padres started him out at Double-A this season.
The Padres traded away their No.1 prospect shortstop, Leo De Vries at the MLB trade deadline for Mason Miller, leaving Salas as the team’s most promising prospect by a mile.
According to the latest ranking from MLB Pipeline, Salas sits in 19th place for prospects around the league.
FanGraphs published a scouting report on Salas and project him to break into the majors in 2026.
“Salas is a mature, well-rounded catching prospect who projects as a plus-plus defender. He is very likely to add substantial power as he matures, but his swing is kind of weird, so he might not tap into all of it in games,” the scouting report read.
At the age of 19, Salas has plenty of time to grow and become a valuable player for the Padres despite missing essentially an entire season with injuries.
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