2025 San Antonio Missions Player of the Year

Summary

The San Antonio Missions finished the 2025 season with a record of 66-72. They finished the first half at 39-30, thanks in large part to a stacked pitching staff.

However, the departure of marquee names like Braden Nett, Henry Baez, and Tyson Neighbors at the trade deadline, combined with the nearly season-long absence of top prospect Ethan Salas, meant that the Missions went 26-42 over their final 68 games of the year. Given the lack of offensive firepower and a home ballpark that is extremely pitcher-friendly, the Missions launched just 67 home runs, slugged .337, and posted a team OPS of .653 – all dead last in the Texas League.

Overview

Our approach to eligibility remains straightforward. Players are considered at whichever affiliate they logged the most service time. So, while player Braedon Karpathios finished his season in San Antonio, you already read about him in the Fort Wayne wrap-up. 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

Double-A is regarded as the differentiator level in the minors. For the first time, prospects regularly face players in their mid-to-late twenties and even players with big league experience. For young hitting prospects, this is their first time being exposed to high-level arms who not only own quality stuff but also have the ability to locate it. If a player has questionable plate discipline skills or issues with creating regular in-zone contact, this is the level where they can be exposed. The diversity of ages, abilities, and backgrounds makes it one of the most interesting levels to watch and one of the most important at which to appraise play. 

Player of the Year

Marcos Castañon (Kevin Charity, John Conniff, Ben Davey, Clark Fahrenthold)

While the San Antonio Missions offense was one of the worst in the Texas League this season, the UC Santa Barbara alum was a rare bright spot. The 26-year-old former 12th-round selection posted a 119 wRC+, .758 OPS, and launched 12 home runs, all of which ranked first among San Antonio hitters this season.

Castañon is a free swinger, offering at 52.6% of all pitches he saw, including an untenable 36.8% chase rate. Expanding so much led to an overall 27.4% whiff rate, but an 81.9% in-zone contact rate helped him generate positive overall results. The swing-happy approach led the 26-year-old to a poor 7.6% walk rate, but he kept his strikeout rate in check at the Double-A level.

Castañon was relatively balanced in his splits, putting up a .783 OPS against righties and a .779 mark against left-handers. Castañon ended up playing the final month of the year with El Paso. There, he showcased solid batted ball data, posting a 106.4 mph 90th percentile exit velocity and an average exit velocity of 90.5 mph.

Others receiving votes: Francisco Acuña (David Jay)

After six-plus seasons in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, infielder Francisco Acuña signed with the Padres as a minor league free agent days after the end of the 2024 season. In his first season in the system, Acuña put up quality numbers, posting a 111 wRC+, .336 wOBA, and 11.3% walk rate. The 25-year-old flashed solid plate discipline, posting a 29.1% chase rate and a solid 83.0% zone contact rate to fuel a 24.0% overall whiff rate – all above league-average marks. The command of the zone helped him draw a team-best 54 walks. Acuña did his best work in June when he hit .326 with an .866 OPS with a 159 wRC+ and .410 wOBA.

When Acuña got on base, he tallied a new career high of 23 stolen bases in 30 attempts. Outside of the quality plate discipline, Acuña’s offensive profile is limited because of a lack of power. He posted just a .365 slugging percentage while collecting a career-high eight home runs.

Top Position Player Prospect

Ethan Salas (unanimous) 

Ethan Salas took a total of just 32 at-bats with San Antonio before a stress fracture in his back ended his 2025 season. Salas had hoped to get back on the field this month at the Arizona Fall League, but was pulled from the Peoria roster just days before the AFL opening day.

Even with the injury and lack of on-field production, Salas is still, without question, the top position player prospect in the San Diego system. In the short time he was on the field, the box score/counting numbers were by no means eye-popping as he hit just .188 with a .544 OPS in ten games.

Dig a little bit deeper, though, and you can still see various reasons to buy into his hit tool. Despite being nearly five years younger than the average Double-A pitcher, the 18-year-old walked more than he punched out, posting a 14.6% walk rate against a 12.2% K rate, and he whiffed at just an 18.4% rate in his short stint in Double-A while posting a well-above-average 86.5% in-zone contact rate. Although the sample size was minimal, it still illustrates Salas’s building blocks for an effective offensive profile. He continued to combine that with elite defensive traits such as excellent receiving skills, lightning fast transfers, and plus-plus arm strength and accuracy before the injury. The shine is certainly off Salas after an unproductive 2024, and with health questions looming over him going into the offseason, but he continues to have more upside than anyone in the system.

Others of Note

For the first month and a half of the season, it appeared Romeo Sanabria was on track for a monster year. The former 18th round selection posted an .875 OPS, with a .497 slugging percentage that translated to a 149 wRC+ in his first 28 games. Sanabria struggled once teams started showing him more breaking pitches, and he put up a 70 wRC+ and logged only 11 extra base hits over his final 70 games. Due to his below-average range and athleticism, Sanabria is locked in at first base. Should he hope to one day climb to the big leagues, he will need to find more regular power. … Third baseman Devin Ortiz, 26, posted a .651 OPS in 2025. That was good enough for sixth among all qualified Missions hitters. For the first month of the year, Ortiz looked locked in, hitting .313 with a 135 wRC+ and .797 OPS. After the hot start, though, he failed to post an OPS higher than .710 in the final five months of the season.

You can view all our level wrap-ups here as they are published.