Former GM Thinks Padres' Top Prospect is a Future Hall of Famer
Ethan Salas is turning more than a few heads at the Padres' spring training camp.
The 17-year-old prodigy is widely considered to be among the top 10 prospects in all of baseball. It's even more astounding when factoring in he's only a teenager — and a young one baseball-wise, at that.
As he gets experience with the Big League club during this preseason period, Salas has proven to be the real deal, spraying the ball to all parts of the park as well as providing rock-solid defense behind the plate.
Jim Bowden of The Athletic has been around the game of baseball for decades. He's held front-office positions with multiple MLB clubs and has since become a very well-respected journalist/pundit.
In a mailbag piece he put together on Tuesday for The Athletic, one fan asked if there were any current minor league Bowden has seen who could one day become Hall of Fame members.
Bowden mentioned two names: Baltimore Orioles infielder Jackson Holliday...and Salas.
Now, that is some serious praise to heap upon a kid who won't be able to legally have his first alcoholic beverage for four more years.
It's widely assumed that Salas will begin the year in Double-A. He won't turn 18 until June, but he might be in Triple-A by the end of this season.
The next question persists: Will Salas get called up to the Padres at age 18? The youngest player to have made his Major League debut was Joe Nuxhall, who was a 15 in 1944 when the Cincinnati Reds needed players old and young to fill out their rosters during World War II.
The last 18-year-old to have played in the Big Leagues was a man by the name of Alex Rodriguez back in 1994.
If Salas has a career anything close to the one Rodriguez had, those in the Padres organization will be doing cartwheels.
