The San Diego Padres are firmly in the National League playoff picture. Sitting at 63-51, they are just three games back of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West, and tied with the New York Mets for the second wild-card spot. Thereâs still a lot of baseball to go, but the Padres had a strong trade deadline, checking off their biggest needs.
They acquired closer Mason Miller in a massive deal, and added much-needed outfield help in Ramon Laureano and Ryan O’Hearn. However, when players don’t perform after being traded to a new team, the leash on being with the big league club can often be shorter.
Padres Option JP Sears
One of those tough decisions the San Diego Padres had to make was on newly-acquired arm JP Sears. The team announced late Tuesday night that they would be optioning Sears to Triple-A El Paso after a poor first outing with San Diego. The southpaw Sears made his team debut on Monday against the Arizona Diamondbacks and gave up five earned runs on 10 hits in just five innings. Sears doesn’t have the best season numbers either. In 116 innings this season, his ERA is 5.12 with 101 strikeouts and 24 home runs given up.
The 29-year-old lefty arm started his MLB career with the Yankees, but didn’t pitch much with them, and then headed to the Athletics. In four seasons with the Athletics, Sears had a 4.59 ERA over 95 starts.
Anthony Franco of MLBtraderumors.com was quick on the news and explained Sears’ MLB service time:
“This is the first time in two and a half years that Sears heads to the minors. He broke camp with the Aâs in 2023 and has been in the majors since then. Sears has also avoided the injured list for that entire time. As a result, heâs tied for fifth in MLB with 87 starts since the beginning of the â23 season. The durability is the big selling point, as his production (4.62 ERA/4.56 SIERA) over that stretch is that of a fifth or sixth starter.” The demotion shouldnât have any impact on Searsâ service trajectory. He has already surpassed the three-year mark and will qualify for arbitration next winter. Heâs under team control for three seasons beyond this one. While heâll probably be back up at some point this year, it may require an injury elsewhere in the rotation.”
Padres Rotation Outlook
JP Sears was going to serve as a bottom-of-the-rotation arm for the Padres, and the front office likely knew that when the Athletics were willing to give him up in the deal with Mason Miller, which is why his leash was so short. However, their corresponding move was bringing up reliever Sean Reynolds, and the Padres now have nine bullpen options to just four starters.
The Padres also optioned starter Randy Vasquez over the weekend, which points to the fact that San Diego will run a four-man rotation until Michael King returns from injury, which appears to be sometime early next week.
No doubt the Mason Miller move is tremendous, and bolsters the Padres’ rotation even further with four or five legitimate high-leverage options. Still, for the starters aside from Nick Pivetta, others have been a little inconsistent or injured. San Diego certainly has aspirations of playing in October, so they are trying to play it safe with some of their arms to ensure they are fresh down the final weeks of the season.
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post San Diego Padres Make Tough Decision on Newly-Acquired Player appeared first on Heavy Sports.