Catching Up With Emmet Sheehan, Who Is the Same (Yet Different) Since Surgery

When he was first featured here at FanGraphs in August 2022, Emmet Sheehan was 22 years old and pitching for the High-A Great Lakes Loons. A sixth-round selection the previous summer out of Boston College, the right-hander had been assigned a 40 FV and a no. 25 ranking when our 2022 Los Angeles Dodgers Top Prospects list came out a few months earlier. But his stock was clearly rising. Sheehan boasted a 2.72 ERA, and he had fanned 93 batters while allowing just 39 over 59 2/3 dominant innings.

His ascent was rapid. Sheehan reached Los Angeles midway through the 2023 season, and enjoyed some immediate success. Debuting against the San Francisco Giants, he hurled six scoreless innings without surrendering a hit. He then went on to finish the year 4-1 with a 4.92 ERA and 4.85 FIP in 13 appearances comprising 60 1/3 innings. But the hard-throwing righty subsequently hit a speed bump. Sheehan opened last season on the IL due to forearm inflammation, and ultimately underwent Tommy John surgery in May. He didn’t return to the mound until this May.

He’s been rock solid since rejoining the Dodgers rotation. Over eight starts and a pair of relief outings, Sheehan has a 3.56 ERA, a 3.23 FIP, and a 27.6% strikeout rate over 48 innings. Moreover, he shoved his last time out. This past Monday, the erstwhile BC Eagle dominated the Cincinnati Reds to the tune of 10 strikeouts, allowing just three baserunners over seven scoreless innings.

Sheehan sat down to talk about his return to action when the Dodgers played at Fenway Park in late July. A night earlier, he’d allowed a pair of runs over five frames in a 5-2 win over the Red Sox.

——-

David Laurila: You’re back after missing a year due to Tommy John surgery. Has anything changed, or are you basically the same pitcher as before?

Emmet Sheehan: “I’m similar. With the rehab process and having a year to think about things, that has changed me in some ways. Obviously, learning from these guys up here has changed me, too. Getting to be around guys like Kersh [Clayton Kershaw], Glass [Tyler Glasnow], Yama [Yoshinobu Yamamoto]… all of them are amazing pitchers. I try to pick stuff up from them, just find little things. We’re all different, but we still do some things similarly.

“Pitch-wise, the one big change was my changeup. Before, it was really big. I was rolling it a lot, like really over-pronating and maybe dropping the slot a little bit, trying to get more depth on it. Coming out of rehab, pronating hard didn’t feel great in my elbow, so we tried the kick-change grip — I’m doing the little spike with my middle finger. And it’s been great. For one thing, I can sell it more like my fastball.”

Laurila: Did over-pronating contribute to your elbow injury?

Sheehan: “I don’t think so, because I didn’t have any pronator issues. The pronator was fine. I don’t really know what it was. It could have been a whole bunch of things, but it was probably just the wear and tear of pitching over time. So, I got the full TJ with the internal brace, which I think is pretty common now. It’s the same rehab as a regular TJ, but reinforced with carbon fiber. They wrap it up. That type of thing.”

Laurila: How does the kick-change compare to your old change?

Sheehan: “It’s a lot better. It’s a little bit harder, has more depth, and the horizontal lines up better with my fastball. It used to be a big runner, sometimes 20 inches of horizontal break, and now it’s in that 10 to 13 range, closer to where my fastball usually sits. Again, it sells better to the hitter.”

Laurila: Where did you learn it?

Sheehan: “[Dodgers director of pitching] Rob Hill taught it to me in Arizona. We have a lot guys who have been learning it in the minors. One of the first guys I knew who started throwing one was Landon Knack, so I talked to him about it a lot.”

Laurila: Are your fastball and slider any different?

Sheehan: “No. The fastball is the exact same. It has a little ride run, which is kind of from my arm angle. I try to stay pretty straight up when I release the ball, but if it’s at a one o’clock axis, it’s going to be a little bit like an 18 [vertical] and 10 [horizontal] ball. I’m trying to get more vert, but there is some run, too.

“The slider is pretty much the exact same, metrically. It was actually kind of slow last night [July 25]. I’d like to be throwing it a little harder than that [86.3 mph, versus 87.7 on the season], but yeah, it’s pretty much me trying to get that small, tight slider that you see Kersh or Jacob deGrom throw. That’s what I’m trying to go for. It’s a gyro, basically. I’m not looking for big movement. I actually threw a sweeper in 2023 before I got hurt, but my arm angle is a little higher now, so I went back to the curveball.”

Laurila: When and why did arm slot go up?

Sheehan: “In 2023, I was throwing harder and everything was going well in the minor leagues. My arm angle was up a little bit, but then I came here [to the majors]. I don’t know if it was because it was harder to throw strikes, or what it was, but it just naturally dropped a few inches. At that point, I thought a sweeper made more sense, but when my arm is where it should be, the curveball makes a lot more sense.”

Laurila: Where are you in terms of approaching your craft? Are you the same pitching nerd you were when we first spoke? More of a pitching nerd? Less of a pitching nerd?

Sheehan: “Probably the same. I had a lot of time to watch different guys throw over rehab, which was really cool. Also watching other people come off their rehab, like Tony Gonsolin — seeing how he started to build his repertoire. Also Dustin May. Being away from it also made me appreciate being here. So yeah, probably the same, if not more.”