Top Prospects Series
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the San Diego Padres. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the third year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but I use that as a rule of thumb.
A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.
All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.
Other Prospects of Note
Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.
Catching DepthOswaldo Linares, CLamar King Jr., CJuan Fernandez, CYoiber Ocopio, COliver Carrillo, C
Linares, 20, was a two-year DSL guy who was sent to Lake Elsinore not long after the Complex League season started. He looked very good during extended spring training, showing feel for the barrel and a passable look behind the dish. He has 40-grade bat speed but is otherwise a pretty well-rounded young catcher. King, whose dad played defensive end for the Seahawks, was a $500,000 high school signee in 2022. He’s extremely physical and has gotten much better on defense during the last year, but he is still a long-term dev project in basically every way. Fernandez, 24, is a multi-positional player with a long bat-to-ball track record. He’s not great at any of the positions he plays (C/1B/3B, a bit of second base last year). Ocopio is a big-framed DSL catcher with a strong early-career bat-to-ball performance. Carrillo is a more mature catcher who is crushing the DSL right now and needs to be sent to Arizona to be tested.
FanGraphs’ FlavorAlain Camou, 2BIsmael Javier, MIFEmil Turbi, MIFLuis De Leon, MIF
This entire group is comprised of undersized middle infielders, many of whom switch-hit, and all of whom have advanced feel for contact. They are also all quite small. Camou is on the complex in Arizona while the rest are in the DSL.
You Might Be Interested in Knowing About…Nerwilian Cedeño, 2BYendry Rojas, SSDaniel Montesino, LFJoshua Mears, LF
Especially if you already care about Padres prospects, you might be wondering about some of the names from this group. Cedeño is a little infielder with sneaky pop for his size. I fear he’s a second base-only defender without enough hit tool to profile as an everyday guy. Unless they can play another position, guys like this tend to end up on Domingo Leyba’s path. The same is largely true of Rojas, who signed for $1.3 million in 2022. I’m not sure he is going to stay on the dirt. For him, Montesino and Mears, the offensive bar they’ll need to clear is quite high.
Inventory ArmsBodi Rascon, LHPJose Espada, RHPMatt Waldron, RHPKobe Robinson, RHPCarter Loewen, RHP
Rascon is a 6-foot-5 lefty with a low-90s fastball, an average slider, and a changeup that flashes. He could be a durable spot starter. A 2019 minor league rule 5 pick by Boston (from Toronto), Espada was signed as a minor league free agent in the offseason. He has a vertical fastball/curveball split and some of his breakers are really nasty. His changeup can miss a bat, too. None of his pitches have consistent finish, which makes Espada’s fastball especially vulnerable at 40-grade velo. Waldron is a knuckleballing depth arm who made his big league debut recently. Robinson is a low-slot righty sitting 94. Loewen is sitting 95 and has an 87 mph slider; he was promoted to Fort Wayne at the end of June. He’s a potential reliever who’s a great distance from Petco.
System Overview
The Padres system is extremely top heavy, with a four-player tier of potential stars up top and then a sizable drop off soon after. The Padres’ deadline posture as big time buyers each of the last several years has definitely cost them good prospects as they’ve aggressively pursued a ring, which is as good a reason to have a slightly depleted farm system as any. The Padres have tended to keep their system flush with enough premium prospects to sustain this approach. They aren’t perfect, but they tend to pick and sign really good players. Last year, I wrote that their system was down compared to prior years and they were still able to trade for Juan Soto. At times, the Padres are a little over-aggressive on the trade market and it ends up costing them the occasional Matt Brash or Emmanuel Clase type of player in a smaller deal. The sheer number of graduated big leaguers in other orgs who were originally signed by the Padres proves both points. There are currently 15 prospects in other systems who were originally signed by San Diego. On average since 2020, seven players originally signed by the Padres have played enough big league baseball to lose rookie status, including Brash, Clase, Jack Suwinski, Andrés Muñoz, and David Bednar.
San Diego is happy to draft pitchers who fall solely due to injury, with Dylan Lesko and Henry Williams the most recent examples; Cal Quantrill and Mason Thompson can be described this way too. As always, on-mound demeanor and worn-on-the-sleeve competitiveness seem to be separators for the Padres, though no amount of chest-pounding will help some of these guys’ fastballs play. On the position player side, a little pod of compact, hitterish infielders has popped up at San Diego’s lowest levels. This is a prospect phylum I tend to associate more with teams that take an analytically-oriented approach in the international market, like Cleveland and Milwaukee. I don’t think I’d call this a trend yet, and it may just be the sort of player they pivoted to in order to fill out a signing class behind Ethan Salas.
The Padres pro department still deploys multiple scouts at the complex level even though the team was expected to contend this season and be buyers at the deadline. This is not true of all contenders, some of which take a more dynamic approach and throttle down complex coverage when they’re less likely to trade for prospects. The Braves are a good example of this. In the event they fail to get rolling in July and decide to make some sellers’ deals, the Padres are in position to take players from the lower minors.