Highly touted prospect Ethan Salas made his major league debut for the Padres last month, batting .256/.275/.462 in a limited sample of 40 plate appearances. He remains a consensus Top 100 prospect in the sport and figures to play a prominent role behind the dish in 2027. Understandably, the 20-year-old Salas will still need to earn his playing time, as president of baseball operations A.J. Preller implied during the team’s end-of-season presser that Salas will be competing with Luis Campusano and Freddy Fermin.
“I don’t think anybody’s going to be guaranteed anything,” Preller told reporters, including the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Jeff Sanders. “I think it’s going to be, for Ethan, for example, a competition-type situation for him.” It’s unsurprising that Salas will still need to prove himself given Preller’s other remarks from the presser, in which he reiterated the Padres’ goal of competing for a championship in 2027.
Salas batted .296/.374/.448 in 404 plate appearances between Double-A and Triple-A this year. He managed the strike zone well, walking at an 11.6% clip and only striking out 14.3% of the time. It remains to be seen how those will translate in a longer run against major league pitching, but the hope is obviously that Salas can be an above-average hitter for years to come. The same is true of his defense, which MLB Pipeline and other evaluators consider advanced beyond Salas’ years.
Talented as he is, there’s a lot of risk in trusting a young catcher with managing a big league pitching staff for a full season, let alone a catcher with only 16 big league games under his belt. That’s where Campusano and Fermin come into play. Campusano played 71 games this year and put up a 127 wRC+ in 248 plate appearances. That’s well above average production, especially for a catcher, and crucially, Campusano was equally effective against left-handed (133 wRC+) and right-handed pitching (126 wRC+). He earned $900K in 2026 and is projected for a $1.7MM salary in arbitration, according to MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz.
Fermin is the defensive specialist of the trio. In 660 2/3 innings behind the plate, he accrued +8 Defensive Runs Saved and a +8 Fielding Run Value, tying for sixth-best and eighth-best at the position, respectively. Statcast rates Fermin in the 72nd percentile or better in all four of framing, pop time, blocks above average, and caught stealing above average. Despite running only a 68 wRC+ this year, his stellar defense brought him up to 1.0 fWAR and has him projected to earn $2.6MM in arbitration, per Swartz.
The combination of Campusano and Fermin is essentially a $4.3MM insurance policy while Salas continues to develop. With how many spots the Padres need to address this offseason, especially in the rotation, $4.3MM isn’t an insignificant amount for a pair of backup catchers. That said, given how well Campusano and Fermin did in their respective roles, other teams might poach them away if the Padres tried to non-tender and re-sign them at lower salaries.
Preller’s comment on wanting Salas to compete suggests Campusano and Fermin will remain in the organization. If nothing else, having all three on hand preserves the team’s depth in the event of an injury. Then, if Salas establishes himself over a larger sample, Campusano or Fermin could be dealt to a catching-needy team at the 2027 deadline.
Photo courtesy of Denis Poroy, Imagn Images
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