Growth Year Prepares Padres’ Ethan Salas For Challenges Ahead
The back of Ethan Salas’ baseball card did not look good at the end of 2024.
The Padres view the season as a pivotal one for the 18-year-old catcher.
“It was a growth year for Ethan,” said High-A Fort Wayne manager Mike Daly, who doubles as the Padres’ assistant farm director. “. . . He was able to post for 469 plate appearances. I give him a lot of credit.
“What he did day in and day out as far as consistent preparation, he was always ready to go at 7 p.m. I think he’ll look back and reflect and see that while 2024 provided challenges, it also provided a lot of opportunity for growth.”
Indeed.
The Padres signed Salas out of Venezuela in 2023. He spent most of that season at Low-A Lake Elsinore, with brief stops at Fort Wayne and Double-A San Antonio as the organization tested the boundaries of the prodigy’s floor. His season ended with a knee injury.
This year, Salas spent his entire age-18 season with Fort Wayne. He batted just .206/.288/.311 with four home runs in 111 games in the Midwest League, but he walked away with clear developmental to-dos as he prepared for the Arizona Fall League:
Sharpen his barrel accuracy, stay on time against different types of pitches and stay in the big part of the field.
It paid dividends in the AFL. Salas hit .244/.351/.427 with three home runs through 21 games.
At Fort Wayne during the regular season, Salas’ plate discipline largely put him in good hitter’s counts, Daly said, only for advanced pitchers to spin breaking balls and offspeed offerings in places he was expecting fastballs.
That experience helped prop up his AFL performance.
“He’s taken some of that stuff and is rolling it out in the Fall League,” Daly said.
FATHER FIGURES
— Shortstop Leodalis De Vries was the youngest player in the Arizona Fall League. The 17-year-old struggled against the advanced competition, hitting .200/.286/.350 with two home runs through 16 games.
— Catcher Brandon Valenzuela had one homer and a .265/.431/.449 batting line through 19 games to start his stay with Hermosillo in the Mexican Pacific League. At the end of the season, the 24-year-old became a minor league free agent.
