Baseball America’s Carlos Collazo Talks Padres Draft

A decade ago, Carlos Collazo was a part-time writer for MLB.com in San Diego. Today, he is the lead writer for Baseball America‘s draft coverage and an anchor of the draft television broadcast.

In the interim, he has become one of the most trusted public voices on both player evaluation and overall trends in the draft process. Now that the dust has settled from this year’s draft and Collazo has turned his attention to the 2027 and 2028 classes, we caught up with the Tar Heel to get his thoughts on the Padres’ results. We talked a week before the deadline for players to sign and before any signing bonuses for the Padres picks have been reported, so we both were reading the tea leaves on allocation of the bonus pool.

MadFriars: As you look at the 2026 class, does this look generally in the shape and direction you were expecting?
Carlos Collazo: Yeah, I think anytime you see a Padres draft led off by a power-oriented, high school pitcher like Coleman Borthwick, it definitely feels very Padres-ish. I mean, most teams, just for whatever reason, seem very hesitant to take those profiles in the first round, and now I think it’s been since 2017 since the Padres have not drafted a high school player in the first round, so I’d say up top, yes.

It was actually pretty college-heavy after their first 2 picks, which was maybe a little bit of  – I don’t know if I would say surprise, but I would not have expected the Padres in general to have so many college players after their first 2. But up top definitely feels like a San Diego draft.

It feels like at least one of those two up top must have been fairly heavily overslot, based on the way the rest of the draft fell.
Carlos Collazo: Yeah, I mean, typically the high school players do command bigger bonuses, just given their draft leverage.I don’t have any signings for them at this stage, but that wouldn’t surprise me either.

Some in the fan base got worked up on the notion that somehow they were going to stack money to make Denton Lord work. Is there any way that seems like a possibility?
Carlos Collazo: Yeah, Denton Lord in the 17th, that does feel like more of a backup option, if something happens with a pick in the first round, and they can move some money to him. It is common for teams to draft these, maybe unsignable guys, in the 17 to 20 round range, just to make sure that if something goes a little bit funky in the first 10 rounds, you’ve got a backup option. But yeah, I wouldn’t expect him to be signed.

Borthwick was a guy you might have been a little higher on than industry consensus going into the draft. What’s your read on him, and what you would be looking for as a development plan for him?
Carlos Collazo: Yeah, I love Coleman Borthwick. The Baseball America guys had me do a draft where I picked the first 30 players that I would select. I actually took him 15th in my own kind of personal exercise. I’m a really, really big fan.

I think he checks a ton of boxes, and then some for a high school pitcher. It’s two potentially elite pitches with his fastball and slider, he’s regularly in the mid-90s, he’s been up to a 100. I think both the power and command he’s shown of his slider is really advanced for a high school pitcher, and just his control and command overall is pretty advanced and rare to see for high school pitchers in general.

I really like his athleticism; I’m really trying to hammer this home for Coleman Borthwick because, while he is 6-foot-6, 260 pounds – he’s a massive human being – I do think he’s tremendously athletic for his size, and that leads to that control and command.

He’s a legitimately good hitter and infielder as well.If he wasn’t a pitcher, I think he would be a real offensive prospect. He drew some Austin Riley comps. People maybe don’t remember this now, but at the time of the draft Austin Riley was maybe thought of as more of a pitching prospect than a hitting prospect. I do think Coleman’s future is on the mound, because it’s just so good there, but yeah, I like everything about this profile.

In terms of development, I think the biggest thing for him is going to be just, what does the third pitch look like. He’s really not had to use his change-up too frequently at this stage, so just getting more reps with that pitch, and maybe developing a second breaking ball to go with the slider, I think will be keys for him.

When you look at the last couple of years, the Padres have gone with Mayfield and Schoolcraft, whose primary secondary was a change-up instead of the slider. Does the fact that he’s shown the feel for spin give you a different read on him than those guys?
Carlos Collazo: Yeah, 100%. I know with Schoolcraft, his feel for spin was such a question that I talked to a scout who went in to watch him, and he basically never threw the breaking ball, so they had to go back to another outing during the spring, just to see the pitch again and feel more confident.

I think Coleman’s breaking ball is at a significantly higher tier at this same stage. it was one of the better breaking balls in the class for us. So I have very little question that he can both spin a breaking ball and have a potential plus offering in the future.

I think it’s definitely a different sort of pitcher than the last 2 guys you mentioned.

Elliot Lescalles went higher than a lot of the public boards had him, but he also feels very Padres-y as a late-rising high school guy who’s a left-handed, hit-first approach with tools to stay up the middle. Did you see him when Team Canada did their Florida or Arizona trip this year?
Carlos Collazo: I actually didn’t see him in person. I’ve just seen him on video and talked with scouts about him. But I do think he’s got a game that, the more you watch him play, the more you like him. He’s one of those players who just seems to do everything at a pretty high level. it’s impressive feel for the zone. It’s a very functional, direct, compact swing, makes a lot of contact.

I think Team Canada does a really nice job in getting their players exposed to high-quality competition, and Elliot really handled himself well in those opportunities. And then the secondary tools I think, are really solid, as well as a plus runner. He has the instincts and the actions to play shortstop. I think he has enough arm for the position as well.

So it’s just a really well-rounded young-for-the-class, up-the-middle position player. It’s hard to not like that profile, and even if it’s maybe a little bit higher than where he was at on some of the boards I still like this pick quite a bit. He was a bit of a sleeper pick for me with where we had him ranked. So I like this pick in the second round.

Ryan Lynch is a guy who the Padres seem to be pretty excited about, even though the results have been mixed. They seem confident he’s going to go quickly and could stay in a starter role.
Carlos Collazo: Yeah, that is my big question. is it a starter or reliever. I know, in the past, he’s had a lot of success in the bullpen. He’s flashed success as a starter as well.

For me, it’s mostly a question of what is that third pitch going to be. I think the fastball and slider are both pitches that have a chance to be above average. I also think he throws enough strikes to pitch in a starting role, especially with the fastball. This year, I think he threw that pitch about 70% of the time for strikes.

He drives a lot of ground balls, which is nice to see regardless of the role that he’s in. But for me, he does have kind of this east-west side arm slot, is he going to have enough of a real third offering to add to that fastball and slider combo to kind of stave off left-handed hitters and pitch deeper into games like you would want a starter to do? I could kind of see it going both ways. What that change up becomes is gonna be key to that profile question.

Looking at the next few picks, is there another guy that interests you?
Carlos Collazo: Nu’u Contrades was a high-profile name on the scouting scene since his prep days. He went undrafted after a solid 2025 season, and he really made some adjustments this year that elevated our understanding of his ceiling. He added a significant amount of power, he got the ball in the air more frequently. That showed up in his underlying exit velocity data, that showed up in his home run performance data.

He’s also shown some speed. He’s an efficient base runner, he’s played second and third base. So I’m not sure exactly where he’s going to play long-term. Is he more of a utility infield-type? Is he a legitimate shortstop – they called him as a shortstop. I do think the offensive growth that he’s shown makes him more exciting than we were for him a year ago.

I also think Joe Tiroly in the seventh round is fairly interesting. He was a guy who came into the season with pretty impressive under-the-hood batted ball data. He didn’t quite live up to the expectations we had him kind of lined up for entering the year, we thought of him as a potential top-three round player.

It didn’t seem like he showed the all-around tools to live up to that billing, but you also look at what he did this year, and I think it’s solid performance. He hit, I think it was 16 homers. That is productive. He’s a bit of an aggressive hitter, he’s a little bit too pull-heavy at times, and I think he’s going to need to really hit, because I’m not sure how much he’s going to offer defensively, but I think that’s an interesting pick as well.

Is there anything else that you thought was interesting in that 11 to 20 range?
Carlos Collazo: I did like Ryan Kucherak a little bit, the shortstop out of Northwestern they took in the 15th round. He’s a solid athlete, good defensive ability, solid hands, he actually played with Roch Cholowsky in high school, so we were a little bit familiar with him going back to that stage. I’m not entirely sure what the hit tool is going to be – that’s probably the biggest question for him. He’s under .300 career as a college hitter. The strikeout rate is a little bit higher than you want to see for a player who doesn’t have a corner profile sort of power, but I do think the defensive profile he brings is pretty solid.

If he’s able to cut down on that strikeout rate a little bit, he’s a really interesting athlete. So he’s maybe the one that stands out to me in that range.

Obviously, the Padres are the kings of undrafted free agency. What do you think of that as a strategy
Carlos Collazo: Yeah, I think it pretty much indicates that we need more than 20 rounds if every team is going to regularly have this many undrafted free agents, I think if you’re a team like the Padres, where your farm system is not the strongest, at this point, it makes sense to get a bunch of new names, and see what you have. You probably have more ability to kind of cycle through roster spots, then maybe some more loaded farm systems do.

I know the Padres are really aggressive lining up their priority, undrafted free agents right after the draft. They’re always one of the quicker teams to target that area. That’s a product of having a lot of scouts on the ground, and really valuing what those scouts think, so I think the Padres are probably one of the better equipped teams to nail the undrafted free agent aspect of the draft.

Of the three high school players reported as signing across the sport, two of them are with the Padres. Do you have any thoughts on that strategy?
Carlos Collazo: If you’re able to get those guys signed, I think it’s impressive to figure out the signability. I do think that, in general, high school players shouldn’t be forced to go to college. I think the idea that MLB wants to restrict those guys, and get them out of the draft is kind of crazy. I think players who just want the pro avenue available for the high school ranks is good. I like the diversity of acquisition strategies from different teams and I just like that.

Recognizing that grading a draft a week after it concludes is pretty foolhardy, I’m going to ask you anyway. Just on approach and process, what do you think of the results of the Padres class here.
Carlos Collazo: Well, I think the headliner being Borthwick gets me pretty excited. I didn’t hear his name mentioned a ton in the run-up to the draft in this range, so I’m excited to see that the Padres were a team that was happy to bet on his upside. If you line up his stuff and the upside, of Borthwick compared to a number of the other arms that started to go in this range, I would much rather take a shot on the upside.

It’s really satisfying for me, personally, to see a team like the Padres, who are happy to continue to take big swings in the draft. I think that is my general headline. Beyond that, we’ll see.