Ethan Salas Is Back and Hitting in Double-A
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A back injury wiped out his age-19 season. Still, the Padres’ top prospect returned to Double-A in 2026 and played his way onto the national stage. It is a lesson in what catchers build while they wait.
Ethan Salas missed most of last season with a back injury. But he returned this spring and went right back to work. By this summer, the San Antonio Missions catcher was playing in the MLB All-Star Futures Game.
He earned it.
Salas owned the first half of 2026 for the Double-A Missions. He is 20 years old, and he hit .277 with real power and speed:
| AVG | HR | RBI | 2B | SB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| .277 | 7 | 33 | 10 | 13 |
Then came the Futures Game on July 12 in Philadelphia. He reached base in both plate appearances — a line-drive single and a walk. In short, he showed a national audience exactly what the Padres have waiting in San Antonio.
In fact, the early-season stretch was even sharper. Over his first 28 Double-A games, Salas slashed .320/.396/.546 with five home runs. Better still, his walk rate sat above 10 percent. That is the mark of a hitter with a real plan, not just a hot hand.
He walked into that comeback carrying a chip on his shoulder. A back injury had erased most of 2025 — his would-be age-19 season in the Texas League. After all, he arrived as a $5.6 million signing and the most heralded international prospect in years. A lost year is not something you brush off quietly. It follows you into the batter’s box.
Salas brushed it off loudly.
To understand what he accomplished by showing up healthy, consider what he had done before the injury. He signed with San Diego in January 2023, at sixteen, for a record international bonus. Soon after, he became the first 16-year-old in Single-A ball since Julio Urías in 2013. The next year, he became the first 17-year-old in Double-A since 2014. Along the way, he won Player of the Week awards and a Player of the Month. Then his league named him its top prospect at the end of his debut season.
And then his back said no.
Baseball is that kind of game. It hands you everything you worked for. Then it puts it all somewhere you cannot reach for a while.
The Salas family knows something about getting back up. His father, José, played catcher in the Atlanta organization. Meanwhile, his brothers are both in professional ball — José Jr. with the Twins, Andrew with the Marlins. Catching is the family trade. Tenacity runs in the family name.
This summer, Ethan Salas came back to San Antonio and proved he belongs. As a result, he is now the Padres’ No. 1 prospect and No. 33 overall, per MLB Pipeline. The Futures Game wasn’t a reward for potential. It was a receipt.
What a catcher can learn from this
A back injury at 19 is a frightening thing for a catcher to absorb. The position is all squat, torque, and repetition. You spend two hours a game folding into a shape most people can’t hold for two minutes. So coming back from a back problem is more than physical. It is also a test of whether you trust your body again.
Salas passed that test. He didn’t just return to Double-A. Instead, he came back with a sharper eye and a power surge in his back pocket. That kind of discipline is not something a body builds during rehab. The patience to lay off a bad pitch and make the pitcher come to you — a mind builds that.
This is the part that transfers. You may never miss a season with a back injury. But you will have stretches when you can’t play — an illness, a slump, a bench role you didn’t expect. The question Salas answered is worth borrowing: What am I building while I wait?
A setback is not a ceiling. That, in short, is the arithmetic of what Ethan Salas did this year. It could be yours, too.
Try this at your next practice
- Mental at-bat reps. Sit in the dugout or stand behind the cage during batting practice and call pitches before they’re thrown. Predict the next pitch from the count, the pitcher’s tendencies, and the previous sequence. After all, Salas’s 10 percent walk rate didn’t come from the batting cage alone. It comes from building a real plan before you step in.
- Plate discipline tee work. Put a tee at one spot in the strike zone — say, the outer third at the knee. Take 20 swings at it. Then set the tee two inches off the plate. Practice not swinging. Because real plate discipline starts with knowing where the zone ends.
- Core and hip stability drills. Squats and hip hinges with controlled form build the foundation the catching position demands. That matters even more for catchers coming back from a back injury. For example, a wall sit or goblet squat held for 30 seconds teaches the posture behind the plate. As always, talk to your coach before adding any load.
Sources: Padres’ Top Prospect Ethan Salas in Midst of Double-A Power Surge (SI/Yardbarker); Ethan Salas hitting home runs in Minor Leagues in 2026 (MLB.com); Ethan Salas among Padres prospects to watch in 2026 (MLB.com/Padres); Ethan Salas to Represent Missions at MLB All-Star Futures Game (MiLB.com/San Antonio).
