Ethan Salas Called Up at 20: Padres Add Their Top Catcher

The Padres had until September 1 to decide whether their best catching prospect belonged in October. They decided.

Catchers take the long road. The position asks a player to learn a pitching staff, a strike zone, and a whole league before anyone trusts him with a game. Most of the good ones spend years in the minors doing it.

But Ethan Salas is 20 years old. The Padres are calling him up Tuesday, into the middle of a playoff race.

Two weeks ago we covered the decision the Padres had to make before September 1. Monday night they made it.

Salas signed at 16 and was the best catching prospect in baseball by 20

Salas signed out of the 2023 international class for $5.6 million, the top prospect in that class, at 16 years old. Today MLB Pipeline ranks him first in the San Diego system and 23rd in all of baseball. ESPN’s midseason list has him 13th overall, the highest-ranked catcher on it.

He also bats left-handed. Most catchers hit from the right side, and a left-handed bat is exactly what San Diego was short of this month. Hold on to that, because it decides how he gets onto the field.

Then 2025 took the season away from him

Salas played 10 games for Double-A San Antonio that year and hit .188. His last game was April 17. The Missions placed him on the injured list nine days later, and a stress reaction in his back took the rest of his season.

He hit his way back one level at a time

Salas returned to San Antonio to open 2026 and played 72 games there. He hit .286 with 7 home runs and a .361 on-base percentage. That is a good season, not a loud one. Still, it earned him Triple-A El Paso on July 29.

Then the bat arrived. Across 24 games at El Paso, Salas hit .326 and slugged .539. But the line underneath those two numbers is the one worth circling: 14 walks against 10 strikeouts.

A hitter who walks more often than he strikes out knows where the strike zone ends. Salas spent 24 games saying so. And the eye that lays off a slider in the dirt is the eye that knows when to call for one.

The Padres called him up on the last day he could still play in October

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported the move Monday night, August 31. Salas joins the club Tuesday, September 1, the day rosters expand from 26 players to 28.

That date is a deadline. A player has to be on the 40-man roster by September 1 to be eligible for a playoff roster later. So the Padres were not adding a bat for one month. They were keeping a 20-year-old catcher available for October.

Eligible is not the same as chosen. Salas has a month to make the choice easy.

Salas reaches the field before he reaches the mask

San Diego already carries two catchers in Freddy Fermin and Luis Campusano. So Salas is expected to start out as a designated hitter against right-handed pitching. That left-handed bat is the part of his game that was ready first.

But Salas may yet crouch behind the plate this month. If he does, he becomes the youngest player to appear at catcher in a big league game since Iván Rodríguez in 1991, according to MLB researcher Sarah Langs. That is 35 years.

He did not skip anything to get here. He lost a season, went back to a level he had already passed, and played 72 ordinary games before he played 24 loud ones. Your 72 games start at practice this week.

Try this at your next practice

• Call it before it lands. Have a coach throw 20 pitches from about 40 feet, roughly half of them finishing off the plate. Call “ball” or “strike” out loud before the ball reaches your mitt. The thrower calls the real answer back to you each time, because from behind the plate you cannot judge your own. Salas walked 14 times and struck out 10 in 24 games at Triple-A, and that gap is this exact skill: knowing where the zone ends before you have to decide.
• The ordinary-game log. Write down one thing you were not good at last season, then one measurable thing you have done about it since. Salas’s answer was 72 games at a level he had already beaten. Most of the work that gets a player called up looks like nothing from the outside.
• Two-strike survival round. In live batting practice, start every at-bat at 0-2. Foul balls keep you alive. A swing and miss or a taken strike ends it. Run five at-bats and count how many pitches you saw across all five. The goal is not to drive the ball. It is to still be hitting on pitch six.

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Sources: Padres To Promote Ethan Salas (MLB Trade Rumors) · Reports: Padres to call up catching prospect Ethan Salas (ESPN) · Padres Calling Up Top Prospect Ethan Salas in Massive Roster Move (Sports Illustrated) · Ethan Salas being called up to Padres (MLB.com) · San Diego Padres Promote No. 1 Prospect Ethan Salas to Triple-A (MiLB.com)