second day of the draft<\/a> was outfielder Ezekiel Zion, a Gilbert, Ariz., native who is committed to South Montana State and expected to sign.<\/p>\nThe 18-year-old Lord will be a tougher endeavor, but perhaps the Padres saved enough money with a college-heavy route on Sunday.<\/p>\n
All told, the Padres selected 17 collegians across the two-day draft, including three seniors inside the first 10 rounds who\u2019ll likely go below slot recommendations: Arizona State shortstop Nu\u2019u Contrades (sixth round, $350,100), Arizona State left-hander Sean Fitzpatrick (eighth round, $226,300) and Troy left-hander Benjamin Stubbs (ninth round, $205,000).<\/p>\n
The class also includes a graduate student in Oregon State left-hander Albert Roblez.<\/p>\n
The Padres have until July 27 to sign their draft class, with Borthwick expected to comprise nearly half of the Padres\u2019 $9.48 million bonus pool if he accepts the slot recommendation of $4.22 million for the 21st overall pick.<\/p>\n
The 21-player class includes nine college pitchers and three college catchers in fourth-rounder Robbie Lavey (George Washington University), 10th-rounder Augie Lopez (USC) and 18th-rounder Mark Quatrani (Notre Dame).<\/p>\n
The left-handed-hitting Lavey hit eight homers in 52 games this past year and the left-handed Lopez hit 19 in 61 games. The right-handed-hitting Quatrani had 15 longballs in 53 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cQuatrani is one of the better hitters in the country, an ultra-offensive catcher,\u201d Kemp said. \u201cYou know, Augie Lopez hit (19) bombs with USC, and we love the left-handed bat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pushing productive catchers to the majors has been something of a hurdle in the A.J. Preller era.<\/p>\n
Most recently, Luis Campusano has struggled to produce consistently while shuttling to and from the minors since 2020. Ethan Salas represented the team on Sunday in the All-Star Futures Game, but Freddy Fermin has hit poorly in his first year as a starting catcher and Rodolfo Dur\u00e1n is a minor league journeyman. The Padres team traded switch-hitter Brandon Valenzuela last year to the Blue Jays for Will Wagner.<\/p>\n
The Padres drafted two high school catchers last year in Ty Harvey (No. 6), and Truitt Madonna (No. 22), both of whom have become top-30 prospects in the system alongside Salas (No. 1) and 2022 fourth-rounder Lamar King Jr. (No. 14).<\/p>\n
Among the college arms selected on the second day of the draft, Miami left-hander Rob Evans stood out.<\/p>\n
Drafted in the 12th round, the 22-year-old started his collegiate career at Georgia State (5.63 ERA, 48 IP), threw just 15\u2153 innings the next year at Miami (4.70 ERA) and blossomed into the Hurricanes\u2019 Friday starter as a senior, going 10-3 with a 3.29 ERA and a 98-to-31 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 87\u2154 innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had been at multiple stops and really found himself this year and took it to another level,\u201d Kemp said. \u201cHe was a completely different person. (He throws) 92-95. It looks like he could be in Double-A pretty quick.\u201d<\/p>\n
==<\/p>\n
PADRES\u2019 2026 DRAFT CLASS<\/p>\n
1\u00a0\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0 RHP Coleman Borthwick (South Walton HS, Fla.)
\n2\u00a0\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0 SS Elliot Lascelles (Upper Canada College HS, Ontario)
\n3\u00a0\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0 RHP Ryan Lynch (North Carolina)
\n4\u00a0\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0 C Robbie Lavey (George Washington University)
\n4C |\u00a0\u00a0 OF Alex Conover (Oklahoma State)
\n5\u00a0\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0 RHP James Guyette (Kansas State)
\n6\u00a0\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0 SS Nu\u2019u Contrades (Arizona State)
\n7\u00a0\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0 2B Joe Tiroly (Virginia)
\n8\u00a0\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0 LHP Sean Fitzpatrick (Arizona State)
\n9\u00a0\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0 LHP Benjamin Stubbs (Troy)
\n10 |\u00a0\u00a0 C Augie Lopez (USC)
\n11 |\u00a0\u00a0 1B Chris McHugh (NC State)
\n12 |\u00a0\u00a0 LHP Rob Evans (Miami)
\n13 |\u00a0\u00a0 OF Michael Smith Jr. (Dayton)
\n14 |\u00a0\u00a0 RHP Ty Brachbill (High Point, N.C.)
\n15 |\u00a0\u00a0 SS Ryan Kucherak (Northwestern)
\n16 |\u00a0\u00a0 RHP Albert Roblez (Oregon State)
\n17 |\u00a0\u00a0 RHP Denton Lord (South Walton HS, Fla.)
\n18 |\u00a0\u00a0 C Mark Quatrani (Notre Dame)
\n19 |\u00a0\u00a0 LHP Chris Downs (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo)
\n20 |\u00a0\u00a0 OF Ezekiel Zion (Campo Verde HS, Ariz.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Padres used the second day of the draft to fill out their minor-league system with college bats…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,1334,74,76,75,2611,127],"class_list":["post-396145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}