Padres' farm system drops to No. 24 in MLB; pair of prospects make top-100 list

You have to give to get, and the Padres certainly gave up quite a bit to get Juan Soto last summer.

So it’s no surprise to see A.J. Preller’s farm system sag to No. 24 (out of 30) in The Athletic’s rankings released Thursday, down from No. 15 last year, No. 7 in 2021 and No. 5 in 2020.

That’s what happens when you rid a player development program of the likes of CJ Abrams, James Wood, Robert Hassell III and Jarlin Susana.

As The Athletic scouting guru Keith Law notes, “the well eventually had to run dry, right?”

He went on: “I don’t think we’ll see this system return to the depth it had two to three years ago any time soon, especially since some of that came from an enormous international signing class under the old rules, but their 2022 draft, headlined by a pair of high-ceiling high school arms, is promising.”

Law is referring to right-hander Dylan Lesko and left-hander Robby Snelling, the Padres’ first two picks last summer. Neither cracked Law’s top-100 prospects list, though Lesko made Baseball America’s, MLB.com’s and ESPN’s top-100 lists.

Newcomer Ethan Salas, signed last month to the richest deal given out in the 2023 international window, also did not crack Law’s list.

Instead, Law slotted shortstop Jackson Merrill as his No. 20 overall prospect and gave outfielder Samuel Zavala a top-100 spot, designating the 18-year-old as his No. 94 prospect. (ESPN ranked Zavala No. 99 this week).

Signed for $1.2 million in January 2021, Zavala hit .254/.355/.508 with seven homers in 33 games at low Single-A Lake Elsinore before a hamate bone fracture ended his 2022 season.

Law wrote that Zavala has “absurd bat speed, rifling the bat through the zone with big hip rotation for hard contact and power, while he’s already shown unusual plate discipline for his age, especially when it comes to laying off pitches out of the zone. As a defender, he shows good instincts and routes, playing center so far more than right, but the odds are he’ll move to the corner in the long term. His combination of high-quality contact and excellent decisions at the plate point to a huge long-term upside, with the risk inherent in any (18-year-old) with only 411 career plate appearances to his name.”