This article is the fourth in a series of articles highlighting roster projections and team predictions for Padres minor league affiliates. We continue the series with the Padres’ lowest level of full-season baseball in the Lake Elsinore Storm.

The Lake Elsinore Storm are in position to bounce back from a disappointing 2025 campaign in the win-loss column.

The team is also seeing turnover on the coaching side of things, as Brian Burres was promoted to the San Antonio Missions to serve as their bench coach. Taking Burres’ place at the helm is Brallan Perez. While Perez is a new face stateside, he has coached in the Padres’ organization since 2023. Perez was most recently the manager of the DSL Padres Gold, who took home the inaugural DSL Cup in 2025.

Perez comes in with some hardware, and he is bringing with him pitching coach Travis Craven. Craven spent two seasons (‘23-’24) as a developmental analyst in the DSL before making the full-time move to pitching coach in 2025. His background is in pitching and development, as the former Whitman College left-hander has a master’s degree in Biokinesiology with an emphasis in Sports Science, notably researching “exploring shoulder and elbow movement in overhead athletes in order to maximize performance and injury prevention”. 

The rest of the staff includes former Storm infielder Ruddy Giron (‘16-’19) as hitting coach and 2024 El Paso Chihuahuas bench coach Greg Starbuck as bench coach. Giron has been a coach in the Padres organization since 2022, and has spent the last three seasons as a co-hitting coach with the team’s DSL and ACL affiliates. Starbuck, meanwhile, returns to the Storm after serving on the staff in 2025. 

With so much turnover, the roster is actually projected to carry some familiar faces in 2026. Here is the Storm’s official Opening Day roster:

?️Storm INCOMING?️

The Lake Elsinore Storm’s Break Camp Roster includes SEVEN (7!) Padres prospects who made our pre-season Top 32 prospects over at @EVT_News

LHP Kruz Schoolcraft (No. 2) headlines the names on the mound, while Kale Fountain (No. 5) leads the position players! https://t.co/o8jC8d8ITd

— Diego Garcia (@StatNerd_Base) March 30, 2026

With an influx of pitching talent and some returning faces at the dish, the Lake Elsinore Storm could be a sleeper team in the California League. The team has the depth and versatility to make games competitive day in and day out. With that in mind, here are some predictions for this team related to player and team performance. 

1. Kruz Schoolcraft finishes the season with 70+ innings and a strikeout rate north of 30%. 

Left-hander Kruz Schoolcraft made a strong impression in his professional debut late in 2025, striking out four in 1.2 innings of work. The left-hander touched 97-98 mph in his debut outing and has been building up over the course of Spring Training. While he touched as high as 96 mph in his Spring Breakout appearance, he averaged 94 mph on his fastball. Despite this, he showed off a four-pitch mix that was not present in his brief cameo last season. The left-hander is set to enter his first professional season locked into a starting rotation spot for the Storm, having posted a 0.52 ERA in his senior season. 

Schoolcraft struck out 82 batters in 40 innings, which amounted to just over two batters per inning, or a K/9 figure over 18. The left-hander’s workload will definitely be worth monitoring, as among the last five pitchers the team selected Top 40 in the Draft, only Robby Snelling (103.2 IP) and Ryan Weathers (96 IP) went over 65 innings in their first full seasons after being drafted. If Schoolcraft is able to maintain his health and not run into any arm/shoulder troubles during the regular season, he could be closer to the 70-90 inning threshold. Should his velocity sit consistently in the 94-96 mph range, it will definitely play as he grows into his height with further pro development. 

2. Kale Fountain stays healthy for the full season and leads the team in home runs. 

Most of the world was introduced to Kale Fountain when he hit an absolute moonshot against the Cubs in the 2026 Spring Breakout game. However, longtime readers have long been in the know about Fountain and his light-tower power. The Nebraska high school career home run leader put that power on full display, albeit in an abridged sample. Across 65 games, Fountain only hit three homers while working his way back to full health after Tommy John surgery and knee discomfort, but he also had nine other extra-base hits and stole 21 bases.

Fountain also delivered a 12.5% walk rate across the ACL and Single-A, with a 23.2% strikeout rate that was just north of the California League average of ~20%. Fountain’s performance in Spring Breakout provides a lot to be optimistic about, as he finished 2-for-2 with a home run, stolen base, and two runs scored. His swing looked a lot more fluid than in his debut campaign, with a lower leg kick on the front end. Fountain’s foundation in his swing appears to be more steady so far in 2026, and should the adjustments in his swing carry over into the regular season, he has the raw power to be a 20+ home run bat in 2026.  

3. Jorge Quintana puts up a .900+ OPS while leading the team in stolen bases. 

It was a rough start to Jorge Quintana’s tenure with the Padres organization, as he hit below the Mendoza Line in 25 games with Single-A Lake Elsinore. The 18-year old shortstop drew walks at a 14.5% rate with the Storm, despite striking out 33.7% of the time in said small sample. On the whole season, Quintana performed better with Milwaukee’s Complex League affiliate than with the Padres, but there are plenty of signs of potential. Quintana’s batted-ball metrics were among the gaudiest in the system, as he regularly posted batted balls over 100 mph in Lake Elsinore.

While the results were not jumping off the page, he has all the tools to translate the quality of contact into above-average power and offensive production. Quintana’s defense is more than serviceable at this stage of his career, as he has the range and arm talent to stick at shortstop. His bat speed consistently ranged in the 77-81 mph range in Spring Training, which allows him to produce freakish power from his current frame. If the bat speed translates in regular-season action this season, the switch-hitting Quintana has every chance to be a .900+ OPS bat in 2026. 

• The Storm win either half and make the California League playoffs. 

The Storm are one season removed from a California League finals berth, so returning to the playoffs remains a possibility. The team has added depth all over the roster, with several Padres’ top prospects and recent draftees on the roster. The team has power up and down the lineup, as well as speed and defensive versatility. Kale Fountain and Kerrington Cross have the power to crush pitching in the California League, and the infield duo of Jose Verdugo and Luke Cantwell can hit for average while reaching base steadily ahead of the power bats in this lineup.

Jorge Quintana and Ryan Wideman have all the tools to be game-changing talents for the team at the plate and in the field, and should give opposing batters a tough time on anything hit up the middle. Ty Harvey and Truitt Madonna, as a catching tandem, have areas for growth defensively, but have shown they can be legitimate threats at the plate in their amateur careers before the draft. When looking up and down at the lineup and depth, the talent present is among the strongest in the California League. 

That statement can be echoed for the pitching staff. Outside of Schoolcraft, this staff is unproven but hungry at the same time. Bryan Balzer will likely be starting games this season alongside Schoolcraft, and he showed plenty of promise in 2025. He posted one of the highest ground ball rates in the Padres’ system, paired with an electric tailing sinker and fall-off-the-table splitter. Tyler Schmitt was the Padres’ 17th-round pick out of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and he comes into his first professional season with a strong foundation. Having made 15 starts in 2025 at the NCAA level, Schmitt looks to be yet another mature arm who can give the Storm length in the rotation.

The same can be said for Nick Falter and Landry Jurecka, both of whom were starters throughout their collegiate careers. Winyer Chourio started five of his 21 appearances last season, and could be yet another developing swingman in the system, as he struck out 55 against 27 walks in 55.1 innings of work. Joseph Herrera and Rordy Mejia are coming over from the DSL, and could each be in line to also make starts.

Out of the bullpen, Carlos Medina could be an under-the-radar developmental arm who makes an impact, as he spent the 2025 offseason in a relief role in the Mexican League, posting a 2.45 ERA and striking out 25 of 119 batters faced for Jaguares de Nayarit. Sean Barnett and Ethan Long are making their shifts from the field to the mound, which could provide the Storm with a boost in their bullpen should the conversions to pitching go to plan. This staff, when paired with new pitching coach Travis Craven and his background in development, could very well hold down the fort at the bare minimum. The ceiling is incredibly high for this staff entering the season, and all that’s left is for the games to be played. 

The Storm kick off their season on April 2 in Ontario, while their home opener is set for April 7 against Rancho Cucamonga.

Diego Garcia

A born and raised San Diegan, Diego Garcia is a lifetime Padres fan and self-proclaimed baseball nerd. Diego wrote about baseball on his own site between 2021-22 before joining the East Village Times team in 2024. He also posts baseball content on his YouTube channel “Stat Nerd Baseball”, creating content around trades, hypotheticals, player analyses, the San Diego Padres, and MLB as a whole.

A 2024 graduate of San Diego State, Diego aims to grow as a writer and content creator in the baseball community.