The Padres have been aggressive with Ethan Salas since signing him as 2023’s No. 1 international prospect for $5.6 million, first by assigning him to Single-A Lake Elsinore right out of the gate. They stayed by him after a down year at High-A in 2024 and while he dealt with a stress reaction in his back that limited him to 10 games at Double-A last summer.
So in a resurgent ‘26 campaign in which the catching prodigy has performed admirably at the top two levels of the Minor Leagues, it should come as no shock that San Diego is being aggressive with him once more.
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The Padres are calling MLB Pipeline’s No. 23 prospect up to the Majors as part of September roster expansion, the team announced Tuesday. San Diego is playing in Cincinnati as part of a three-game series with the Reds.
Already the youngest player to appear in Triple-A this season, the catcher, who turned 20 in June, will become the youngest Major Leaguer immediately upon his arrival. He is two months younger than the previous youngest title holder Konnor Griffin (born April 2006). He will also be the youngest backstop to play in a Major League game since Iván Rodríguez appeared at 19 years old in October 1991.
The left-handed slugger hit .296/.374/.448 with 10 homers and 17 steals -- both career highs -- over 96 games with San Antonio and El Paso before the callup. He’d been even better with the Friars’ Triple-A affiliate since he debuted with three knocks on July 29, putting up a .326/.410/.539 slash line with three homers and a 127 wRC+ over 24 games in the Pacific Coast League. He walked more times (14) than he struck out (10) at the highest rung of the Minor League ladder.
Beyond maintaining his health month after month, the development of the hit tool has perhaps been the most exciting part of Salas’ profile in 2026.
The Venezuela native adjusted from a more straight-on stance in previous years to an open one that closes with a toe tap in his load. The change has improved his rhythm and timing, leading to a ton of contact. There have been 514 Triple-A hitters who have seen 400 pitches tracked by Statcast this season; Salas’ overall 9.8 percent whiff rate is third-lowest among that group of 514. Per Baseball Savant, he’s also run a 93.1 percent in-zone contact rate that would rank among the top 10 qualifiers in the Majors, if he’s able to hold it against top-level pitching.
While Salas has established a new career mark in long balls, it might be the power that takes a little longer to pop in the bigs -- certainly understandable for someone who was still a teenager only three months ago. Salas’ 103.2 mph 90th-percentile exit velocity and 108.4 max EV were closer to average for Triple-A, though they were paired with a solid 43 percent hard-hit rate. However, 53.8 percent of Salas’ batted balls with El Paso were on the ground, and he’ll need to improve his angles to get to average in-game pop down the line.
Salas’ defense has been impressive throughout his Minor League career, earning raves from Minor League teammates and Major League pitchers alike. He even used the downtime from his back injury to sit in on Padres games at Arizona’s Chase Field to study how Major League batteries worked together. His game planning and receiving have been advanced beyond his years, and he’s worked to become more efficient as a thrower from behind the dish. Per Statcast, he recorded 10 home-to-second pop times below 1.9 seconds during his short time with El Paso, leading to him establishing a 33.3 percent caught-stealing rate with the Chihuahuas.
That aside, the Padres have two established backstops already in Freddy Fermin and Luis Campusano, so it’s not a given that Salas will immediately get a ton of time behind the plate. Instead, he might rotate between catching, DHing and being a lefty bat off the bench, especially following injuries to the left-handed-hitting Gavin Sheets (sprained foot) and switch-hitting Luis Rengifo (right ACL tear).
At any rate, it’s become clear that Salas can help the Padres in the present during their pursuit of a postseason spot, and with his increasingly more well-rounded skill set, this will be his biggest step yet toward becoming the club’s catcher of the long-term future.