Ethan Salas is on the move … to a new level of the San Diego farm system.
The Padres promoted their top prospect to Triple-A El Paso on Wednesday and he responded by falling just a homer shy of the cycle during the club's 9-7 loss in extra innings to Albuquerque at Southwest University Park. The 20-year-old backstop became the youngest regular to feature at the Minors’ top level in 2026.
Salas wasted little time getting into the hit column, swatting an opposite-field double in his first plate appearance on a hanging slider from righty Jake Brooks (Rockies). After grounding out in the fourth, Salas added his first RBIs at the level on a two-run triple to right-center that came off the bat at 104.9 mph.
MLB's No. 3 catching prospect walked in the eighth and ended his night with a 100 mph single to the opposite field off right-hander John Brebbia, who has 379 big league appearances spanning nine seasons under his belt.
COMPLETE PADRES PROSPECT COVERAGE
Salas hit .286/.361/.417 with seven homers and 13 doubles in 72 games for Double-A San Antonio this season. He is one of only eight age-20 backstops to receive 300 or more plate appearances at Double-A in a single season since 2006, and his 112 wRC+ is second-best among that octet, trailing only Samuel Basallo’s 126 mark in 2024.
It’s been a bounceback campaign for the Venezuela native.
After putting up just a .599 OPS at High-A Fort Wayne in 2024, Salas played only 10 games in the Texas League last year due to a stress reaction in his back, and that combination of down performance and health dropped him from MLB Pipeline’s preseason Top 100 Prospects list. He still maintained his reputation as a potential plus-plus defender behind the plate, and as the hitting results returned in ‘26, so did his Top 100 status. He’s now up to No. 30 on the overall list.
“Ethan's work ethic is elite,” San Diego assistant director of player development Mike Daly said in May. “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.”
Being young for the level is certainly familiar terrain for Salas.
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Ranked as the top international prospect in the 2023 class, the left-handed slugger signed with the Padres for $5.6 million in January of that year and skipped straight to stateside full-season ball with a debut at Single-A Lake Elsinore two days before his 17th birthday. He has been at least four years younger than the average player in every league he’s played in since.
At the Major League level, the Padres finished Wednesday on a five-game winning streak that has pushed them to a 55-53 record and only 1 1/2 games back of the third National League Wild Card spot. Their place as buyers or sellers could well go down to the wire of Monday’s Trade Deadline at 6 p.m. ET, but in the meantime, the club’s top prospect is taking one step closer to The Show.