Padres’ top catching prospect is prioritizing durability over offseason showcase

The Arizona Fall League is built for hype. It’s where prospects stack at-bats, headlines, and confidence before the offseason really settles in.

And that’s exactly why the Padres doing the opposite with Ethan Salas matters.

Salas skipping the AFL isn’t the organization being timid, it’s the organization being serious. The Padres have zero interest in winning the Fall League scoreboard if it risks losing more months (or years) of development time for a 19-year-old catcher who’s still very much part of the long-term plan.

Catching prospects already live on hard mode with the physical toll and the daily grind. Now you add a lower-back stress reaction that sidelined him far longer than anyone initially wanted.

Padres pump the brakes on Ethan Salas’ offseason plans for a bigger payoff

That’s the key detail: the Padres aren’t pretending the back injury didn’t matter. They’re treating it like the type of thing you don’t power through just to log some extra October reps.

A.J. Preller basically admitted as much when he addressed Salas near the end of the season. The Padres, their doctors, and their specialists aren’t viewing the situation as some dramatic setback — they’re viewing it as a patience test. Preller’s framing said everything in a piece written by AJ Cassavell: “It’s not really a setback. It’s just been us and our medical staff, our doctors, our specialists that we’ve talked to about Ethan, just understanding he’s 19 years old, and this is all about the next 10 years.”

That’s not PR fluff. That’s roster-building logic. If Salas is going to be the catcher the Padres dream on — the one who can actually hold down the position in San Diego, impact the ball, and grow into the leadership role that comes with it — then durability is not a side quest. You can’t develop a catcher’s bat, body, and routine if he’s constantly ramping up, shutting down, and starting over.

There were no AFL games played,  therefore there was no opportunity for "rushing." The focus simply needs to be on getting him back in shape, having him swing (and have success), and get him ready to build some real development time going into Spring Training 2026. If he has his old self again, then the Padres will let the level of competition work itself out, and if that's Double-A, pushing to get to Triple-A, or establishing a consistent base of performance after a lost portion of the 2025 season.

This is the Padres being bullish in the most believable way possible: not with quotes, but with restraint.