![\"Surprise,](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/SUT-L-padresST-2-21-056.jpg\")
Surprise, AZ \u2013 February 21: Ethan Salas #90 of the San Diego Padres sits in the dugout during a spring training game against the Kansas City Royals on February 21, 2026 in Surprise, AZ. (K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\nPEORIA, Ariz. \u2014 Ethan Salas turned 19 last June.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s right. Nineteen.<\/p>\n
Because his brothers play in the Marlins system, a muted celebration involved just mom and dad at a dinner not far from the Peoria Sports Complex, where Salas spent most of a year all but lost to a stress reaction in his lower back.<\/p>\n
But not all was lost.<\/p>\n
The Padres made sure of that once it became clear that their prized catching prospect\u2019s development would be significantly derailed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, in a perfect world, he would have gotten 500 at bats in Double-A,\u201d Padres assistant farm director Mike Daly said. \u201cI don\u2019t think anybody\u2019s going to argue that, but I think there were opportunities for Ethan to be able to grow off the field.\u201d<\/p>\n
Especially in an organization overflowing with catching IQ.<\/p>\n
Special assistant A.J. Ellis spent a good chunk of an 11-year, big-league career as the personal catcher \u00a0for future Hall-of-Famer Clayton Kershaw. Another special assistant, Scott Servais, caught in the majors for 11 years before managing the Mariners for nine. Kevin Plawecki caught eight years in the majors before beginning his coaching career last year in the Padres system. Big-league advance scout Mike Borzello never advanced past A-ball as a catcher, but he won four rings with the Yankees as a bullpen catcher and another as the Cubs\u2019 catching coach in 2016.<\/p>\n
It would be hard to find a better group to lean on while making sure that Salas at least stayed in \u201cbaseball school\u201d during his down time.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously anytime you have a player loses developmental time, you kind of worry about it,\u201d Servais said. \u201cWhere is he going to be?\u201d<\/p>\n
Hence the comprehensive syllabus that was put together at the direction of Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller.<\/p>\n
The foundation was a weekly video conference that rotated between the four former catchers. The subject matter tackled everything from how to call a game, to the mental aspects of the position, to the right analytics to look at, to how to incorporate scouting reports into a game plan and everything in between. Assignments included devising opposing scouting reports while he was still at Double-A San Antonio, following the Padres\u2019 big-league games at night with the scouting report in hand and helping the young catchers at the Peoria Sports Complex develop attack plans ahead of Arizona Complex League and unofficial \u201cBridge League\u201d games.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause anytime you have to teach something,\u201d Servais said, \u201cyou learn it even better yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then there were the seven or eight field trips to the Diamondbacks\u2019 Chase Field with Borzello to watch the game from behind home plate with the rest of the scouts.<\/p>\n
There, everything was put on Salas\u2019 radar: Why is the runner being held in that situation? Why are the left and center fielders in \u201cno doubles\u201d but the left fielder is not? Why are the infielders in \u201cthree-depth\u201d instead of all the way in?\u201d Why does the scouting report say to avoid strike sliders to a particular hitter?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe game, when you watch it like that, actually moves fast,\u201d Borzello said.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cCerebrally he\u2019s advanced for his age, and for as little as he\u2019s played, he absorbs the information really well. Now it\u2019s just about playing and getting reps.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bone scans in November and January cleared Salas\u2019 return to action and he\u2019s slowly working his way back this spring as he prepares to get back to work this year in Double-A.<\/p>\n
Surprise, AZ \u2013 February 21: Ethan Salas #90 of the San Diego Padres sits in the dugout during a spring training game against the Kansas City Royals on February 21, 2026 in Surprise, AZ. (K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
Salas collected only 41 plate appearances in the Texas League last April before he was shut down and he had a .599 OPS in 2024 after opening the 2024 season as the youngest player in the Midwest League.<\/p>\n
All of that is reason why Salas\u2019 stock has fallen as the prospect industry goes \u2014 he\u2019s down from No. 8 before the 2024 season to No. 90 at Baseball America this year and entirely outside the top-100 at MLB.com.<\/p>\n
But Salas seems to have a healthy understanding of how that works, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey love you when you\u2019re hot,\u201d he said with a laugh, \u201cand they hate you when you\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Ethan](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/SUT-L-SpringTraining-Day4-018.jpg\")
Ethan Salas #90 of the San Diego Padres runs the bases during spring training workouts at the Peoria Sports Complex on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026 in Peoria, Ariz.. (Meg McLaughlin \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
Indeed, Salas was hot when he signed for $5.6 million in January 2023 as the top international amateur, was the rare 16-year-old position player at a full-season affiliate that year and was sitting on nine homers in 48 games at low Single-A Lake Elsinore when the Padres began to push their catching prodigy up the ladder.<\/p>\n
In between the growing pains sustained along the way, he had little time to truly just sit with everything thrown at him since catching big-league bullpens in spring training weeks after signing.<\/p>\n
Consider that another byproduct of a year spent watching and learning and waiting to get back on the field. He\u2019s bigger (215 pounds, up from 195 or so), he\u2019s shortened up some of the movement in his swing to be more consistent with his contact point and now he\u2019s armed with a 400-level crash course on the most intricate position in the game as he prepares to get his career back on track.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s why I didn\u2019t see last year as the biggest negative in the world,\u201d Salas said. \u201cI just took a lot of time to reflect, kind of make a plan starting forward and how I want to start going about things and I want to start playing and taking care of my business.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, I\u2019m still young. I\u2019m still (bleeping) grinding, still love this game and I know I\u2019m going to do good things in this game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PEORIA, Ariz. \u2014 Ethan Salas turned 19 last June. That\u2019s right. Nineteen. Because his brothers play in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,853,4,43,137,18,4339,4338,185,3546],"class_list":{"0":"post-592823","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego-padres","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-padres","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-padres","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-sandiegopadres","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116133429087012050","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}