Padres make tough roster move as Mike Shildt has blunt response to catching situation

The San Diego Padres are one of the best teams in baseball, and they'll continue to ride with hot hand Kyle Higashioka, who has been one of the biggest surprises in MLB this season. He's got 16 home runs and a .764 OPS in 76 games so far. That means the hierarchy has been disrupted.

With top prospect Ethan Salas still a work in progress at the start of 2024, the San Diego Padres took the opportunity to give Luis Campusano a honest shot to win a roster spot at catcher. It wasn't that long ago that Campusano was considered a top catching prospect despite some injury issues. With Salas on the way, the Padres needed to see what they had with him.

Unfortunately, not only did Campusano fail to impress this season when he got playing time, but that playing time became less and less frequent, leading the Padres to option Campusano back to the minors this week.

Campusano has a very basic problem with the Padres in that he is simply the third best option at catcher at the moment. After a promising start to the season, Campusano was banged up for a bit, and since the beginning of August he has an unplayably bad .492 OPS in 56 plate appearances while struggling defensively as well.

Padres option Luis Campusano as his future with team remains extremely unclear

Conversely, the Padres acquisition of Kyle Higashioka in the Juan Soto trade proved to be a major addition for 2024. His defensive numbers aren't amazing, but the contributions he's provided at the plate, especially his stretch during the summer where he was hitting like an All-Star, gave him the edge over Campy.

With Campusano already losing significant playing time to Higgy, the writing was clearly on the wall that San Diego was going in another direction when they went out and signed Elias Diaz after he was released by the Rockies. Diaz provides more defensive value than either of the Padres catchers and has upside at the plate to boot. In a world where both Higgy and Diaz are on the same roster, there was just no path to playing time for Campusano in 2024.

As for what happens after this season, that is where it gets a little tricky. Campusano is under team control, but the Padres' roster move suggests they could try to bring back one or both of Higashioka and Diaz in 2025 while Salas continues his ascension. That could mean, barring some big changes, that Campusano will be the odd man out altogether.

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