Padres could unlock the one JP Sears fix that would change his ceiling fast

The 2026 season is going to be make or break for JP Sears. The 29-year-old left-handed pitcher was a trade deadline addition for the San Diego Padres this past season, which saw some extremely good moments for him. He also hit a few bumps in the road and was shockingly demoted to Triple-A soon after arriving in San Diego.

Sears is probably going to get his chances to start this upcoming season with Dylan Cease and Michael King gone, but if he wants to consistently remain in an MLB rotation, then he is going to have make some vital changes.

Luckily for Sears, he gets to work all offseason and spring training with Ruben Niebla, who is famous for making a few pitchers better, including King. One massive improvement Sears needs to make is with his ground ball rate (30.2 percent). For a soft-throwing left-hander, it is imperative of him to find a way to register more ground balls in 2026, but the fix could be easier than Padres think.

Padres' JP Sears must turn into a ground ball pitcher if he wants to remain a solidified starting pitcher

Sears' overarching issue is that he throws his fastball way too often. He elected for his four-seamer 41 percent of the time last year, which resulted in the opposition muscling 30 extra-base hits off of it.

Sears threw seven different kinds of pitches in 2025, so maybe it's time to start tinkering with what really works. He has great stuff, but it has been underused.

What pitches cause ground balls? Sliders, sinkers, and cutters definitely do the job. Sears never had a cutter in his arsenal until the 2025 season. He only threw that pitch eight times, but it didn't result in a single hit allowed. Maybe it's time to perfect that pitch, and make it a go-to offering.

Sears threw his changeup 15 percent of the time, which resulted in the opposition slugging .500. If you throw his fastball and changeup to the wayside, and incorporate his filthy sweeper more often with a cutter-slider-sinker trio, he might be working with something legit.

His slider, which was thrown only 7.1 percent of the time in 2025, had his best whiff rate at 21.7. His sinker metrics weren't great, but he hardly threw that pitch against lefties. If he can get more comfortable throwing a sinker against them, that would easily turn into more grounders as it runs in on the batter's hands.

This could all just be wishful thinking, but considering that Niebla is a pitching guru, he could elevate someone like Sears' game, who has an impressive stable of pitches. It's just a matter of figuring out how to use them, and how often. If Sears can get just a little better from last year, then San Diego would have a reliable bottom-of-the-rotation southpaw.