Padres No. 4 prospect Kash Mayfield has been nearly unhittable to start the 2026 season.
San Diego's first-round selection in the 2024 MLB Draft took the mound in High-A Fort Wayne's 1-0 victory at Classic Auto Group Park over Lake County and worked five scoreless innings, allowing just one hit, walking none and punching out a season-high eight batters.
Mayfield faced an impressive lineup that featured the Guardians' Nos. 8 and 13 prospects, Jace LaViolette and Dean Curley. The southpaw needed only 56 pitches to silence the group, punching out at least two hitters in three of the five innings he worked. He heavily favored his changeup (60 grade, on the 20-80 scale) and fastball to generate his swings-and-misses, with the four-seamer generating 10 whiffs and his changeup eight.
Mayfield’s changeup continues to be his most intriguing offering, tunneling well off of his fastball as it sits in the low 80s and sees around 15 inches of armside fade. At the Padres' 2026 Spring Breakout game, it flashed 17.5 inches of horizontal break. (For context, just nine MLB pitchers who have thrown at least 50 changeups this year have averaged that much horizontal break or higher.)
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His four-seamer sits between 92-93 mph, and while it tends to show more of a dead-zone shape, it has flashed 18 inches of induced vertical break, at times, in his career. (The MLB average is around 16 inches.) Mayfield dealt with shoulder trouble during the first half of last season, and as he moves further from that injury, the hope is that he can build the velocity closer to 92-95 mph and perhaps top out at 97 again, as he did on the Draft circuit back in 2024.
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Winner of both the 2023 and '24 Gatorade Player of the Year Award in his home state of Oklahoma, Mayfield has now worked a combined 12 innings this season and yielded just one hit while fanning 16.
In 72 2/3 career innings of work between the Single-A California and High-A Midwest Leagues, Mayfield owns a 2.48 ERA and a 34.9 percent K rate.