16-year-old Padres prospect making rapid rise through system

The San Diego Padres have one of the most fascinating prospects in all of baseball in 16-year-old catcher Ethan Salas. 

Not only because he is already ranked among one of the game's top-100 prospects at such an incredibly young age, but also for how advanced he is as a catcher and how rapidly he is moving up the organizational ladder. 

On Tuesday the Padres officially added Salas to their Single-A roster at Lake Elsinore and will be batting second, serving as the team's designated hitter in his minor league debut. 

He turns 17 on Thursday. 

According to MLB.com, Salas is just the third prospect to play at the Single-A level at the age of 17 (or younger) since the 2018 season, while he is the youngest player to appear in a minor league game this year. 

He signed a $5.6M deal with the Padres this past winter. 

He had an opportunity to work with the team's Major League pitchers in spring training and seems to be on the fast track to a Major League career within the next few years. 

Here is what Padres scouting director Chris Kemp said about Salas back in January:

"He's kind of the total-package catcher,” scouting director Chris Kemp said after the Padres signed Salas this winter. “It's just rare. This is my ninth year doing international scouting and, for us, this is the most interesting guy we've scouted."

Salas was already starting to draw superstar hype back in March, and if he proves he can hit and play the position at this young of an age in A-Ball that hype is only going to continue to balloon. 

Trying to project players that young is an impossible task because nobody actually knows how they will develop. But Salas seems like a rare prospect that has a chance to really emerge as a potential star in the coming years. 

He is already starting that path now with an extremely rare promotion to the minor leagues.