Summary: The 2025 ACL Padres pitching staff was historically bad. While the offense was nothing special, the club posted a 7.70 ERA, the worst mark in affiliated baseball since 2007. That was more than double the league’s best mark. That ugly production led to the club finishing five games behind the second-worst squad in the 15-team league and just 1.5 games ahead of the worst record ever posted on the circuit going back to the 1980s.
It’s not hard to understand how the team fared so poorly. Having allocated 98% of their international free agent spending in 2023 and 2024 to Ethan Salas, Leo De Vries, and Humberto Cruz, the roster was populated by foreign pitchers who signed for $10,000 and undrafted free agents. The only pitchers eligible at this level who drew a signing bonus above $150,000 are Dane Lais, who logged only 4.2 innings while officially on a rehab assignment from the 60-day IL, and Ruben Salinas, who got $800,000 as an outfielder way back in 2019 and was released at the end of July.
Overview: Our approach to eligibility remains straight-forward. Players are considered at whichever affiliate they logged the most service time. So, while Kannon Kemp opened the year getting up to speed in the desert, he’ll feature in the Lake Elsinore wrap-up since he logged more games there. We recognize the top contributor to this year’s team as the top player, while the top prospect is based on our expectations based on his production, age, projectability, and potential impact in the major leagues.
Level: Now that MLB has moved the draft to mid-July in a delusional attempt to build a television audience for it, the inexplicably renamed Arizona Complex League is largely made up of international free agents and a small group of draftees out of high school from previous years or players returning from injury.
Domestic roster limits and trends in pitching development has cut so much pitching depth that many games are scheduled for only seven innings. Newly configured levels of the minors have incentivized organizations – even those not as prone to aggressive promotions as the Padres – to quickly move high-end college position players to full-season ball, leaving long-time scouts to try to recalibrate to the new, lower level of competition.
Nothing you imagine U.S. professional sports to look like applies to the lowest level of domestic baseball. Games – mostly played on back fields rather than the main stadiums – are rarely watched by more than a half dozen people who aren’t team employees or players’ family members. Game-time temperatures often exceed 100 degrees, and even with the pitch clock, games frequently lumber well past three hours. Watching an ACL contest will test even the heartiest fan’s commitment.
Pitcher of the Year: Dariel Polanco (John Conniff, Ben Davey, Clark Fahrenthold, David Jay)
The fact that Polanco, who posted a 5.79 ERA and struck out only 16% of the batters he faced, gets the nod here probably tells you everything you need to know about the season in the desert. The righty, who signed as an 18-year-old out of the Dominican Republic in 2023, had a 3.27 ERA in two seasons in the DSL before coming stateside this spring, relying largely on his ability to keep his pitches in the zone. That continued this year, as he walked only seven batters in 37.1 innings, resulting in a 4.1% walk rate that was better than all but two pitchers who saw as much action in the ACL as he did. While he did a great job of avoiding self-inflicted wounds, rookie-league batters did plenty of damage themselves, posting a .340 average and .863 OPS against him. Obviously, he’ll have to find some actual swing-and-miss options to find success at higher levels.
Winyer Chourio (Kevin Charity)
Winyer Chourio gets ready to release. (Photo: Jerry Espinoza)
Chourio’s ERA was a bit more than half a run higher than Polanco’s, but he showed much better strikeout stuff. The 21-year-old Venezuelan, who signed his first professional contract after the 2024 season was already underway, has a typical pitcher’s frame – one which still needs at least 20 pounds – and can show high-quality velocity, but he also walked or hit 23 batters in 35.1 innings. While he’ll have to make some significant improvements to make a full-season roster to open next year, what he managed to do this year matched up favorably with any of his teammates.
Top Pitching Prospect: Luis Maracara (John Conniff, Ben Davey, Clark Fahrenthold)
Maracara’s results were rough – he posted a 9.19 ERA and a troubling 18.4% walk rate – but unlike most of the rest of the staff, there is some projection for the righty who didn’t turn 18 until after the complex league season was done. His fastball still sits in the low-90s, but he’s athletic enough with his delivery to hope for more to come. It probably makes sense for the Venezuela native to spend the entire 2026 ACL season in Peoria, but the Padres organization has had some success in developing lower-profile signees with some of the same traits.
Dane Lais (Kevin Charity; David Jay)
Dane Lais will look to establish himself when he has full medical clearance in 2026. (Photo: Jerry Espinoza)
Lais was something of an unknown in most public spaces when the Padres agreed to a $350,000 bonus with him as a Day 3 selection in 2023 to keep him from joining Oregon State, and then he promptly underwent Tommy John surgery at the end of spring training in 2024. He had a slow return to competition after the surgery and didn’t make his professional debut until July 8 of this year. He only tossed 4.2 innings across three outings, but the big-bodied righty, who will be 20 years old when he opens next season in the Storm rotation, has the mix of physicality, stuff, and time that make him stand out among an otherwise underwhelming group of candidates.
Others of Note: There aren’t really any hidden surprises here. Righty Rordy Mejia, signed as an 18-year-old at the end of the 2023 international free agent period, has some vaguely interesting traits heading into his age-21 season. Mejia had a solid 22:7 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 18.1 innings in his first season stateside. Perhaps the most interesting arms to spend the entire summer in Peoria are righty Carson Montgomery and lefty Zack Qin. Montgomery, the club’s 11th round selection in 2023, had Tommy John surgery early in the 2024 season and was ready to go just as play in the desert ended. The club decided not to rush his return, so he didn’t appear competitively, but he’s been impressive in his work in the bridge league and instructs, and could put himself back on the map with a strong performance in the Arizona Fall League. Qin, 20, went down with an elbow injury at the end of spring training this year and had surgery just as the regular season opened. He likely won’t throw competitively until late in the 2026 season, but the lefty has intriguing characteristics.
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