Gavin Sheets, drafted as a first baseman in the second round of the 2017 draft with enough regard for his left-handed power bat to be an overslot signing, made his major-league debut Tuesday night. He collected two hits and drove in a pair of runs in a 7-6 White Sox victory. He started in right field.
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“Just how I planned in 2017,” Sheets, 25, said with a smile before the game.
It’s bizarre considering that two years ago, Sheets was a first baseman listed at a hulking 6-foot-5, 245 pounds when he was batting in the middle of the Double-A Birmingham order. It’s also perfect, a result of the transformative work of the past year that vaulted Sheets from literally outside of the team’s depth picture last season, to starring in a midsummer victory over a division rival.
“The thing that made me realize that he was most serious was last summer when he transformed his body and got with a trainer that just worked miracles,” said Larry Sheets, Gavin’s father. “Being able to pick up some running speed, and being able to take that to shagging fly balls and sort of developing that outfield skill. He’s not as good as he will be.”
Larry spent eight seasons in the majors, mostly in Baltimore, where he hit 31 home runs in 1987, and mostly played the outfield. He never pushed his son into baseball, but when Gavin was smarting after being left off the alternate site roster last summer and left to his own devices to continue his career, Larry offered his support. He talked with him about adding positional flexibility to make himself more valuable to the White Sox. He watched with awe as Gavin lost 20 pounds, added speed but retained his strength while training with former NFL safety Courtney Greene. And when his son wanted, they headed out to a field where Larry hit him fly balls.
“It’s been his initiative and his hard work,” Larry said. “I don’t mind following him along and doing whatever I can do to help.”
Larry thought about all those fly balls they hit together, both last summer and as Gavin was growing up, while he fired up MLB.TV and watched his son’s debut from his home in Maryland on Tuesday night. He thought about all of their talks about letting the ball travel and taking what the pitcher gives him as he watched Twins starter Kenta Maeda attack his son with splitters and sliders; making a rookie prove his discipline before ever showing him a fastball. And then, with his own major-league memories flooding his mind, he watched his son, in his first major-league at-bat, slice an outside splitter to the opposite field for a picturesque single.
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“It was like all that hard work that he’s put in over the years, just paying off,” Larry said. “Just to battle and just to have an opportunity. That’s all that any guy that’s chasing that dream asks for.”
“Oh, we’re hitting balls the other way now, huh?” Jake Burger, drafted one round ahead of Gavin in 2017 and familiar with the idea of long but rewarding journeys, shot his buddy in a joking text.
The nitty-gritty, all-fields good pieces of hitting have been a strength of Gavin’s throughout his professional career, while scrutiny has fallen upon his ability to provide the standout left-handed power that he was drafted for. Larry had always assured his son that power production is the last thing to come, and with seven home runs in 41 games and a .472 slugging percentage at Triple-A Charlotte this season before his call-up, Gavin felt that has begun to come together.
“The biggest thing for me is not trying to change anything,” Gavin said. “I’ve always tinkered a little too much, tried different things and never felt fully comfortable. But I finally feel at the point with my swing where it’s where I want it to be, so now it’s not tinkering anymore. It’s going out there and competing.”
That clarity was put to the test immediately. Gavin’s second major-league at-bat came with the bases loaded and the White Sox down a run. Gavin later said he found it clarifying. His mind became consumed with his situational responsibilities rather than milestones. Larry saw his son fall behind 0-2 to Maeda. An idyllic debut might have included Gavin getting a grooved, middle-in mistake fastball and launching it 450 feet. Instead, Larry took pleasure in watching his son battle at the highest level of the game before spraying a line drive back up the middle that Maeda deflected into a run-scoring, game-tying forceout. Gavin plated another run two innings later with a bloop double dropped into left with two runners on.
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“It’s not always going to happen,” Larry said. “But he’s one of those guys that competed in those situations and flourished in those situations.”
Gavin plans on a long major-league career, so his father referred to his debut as “somewhat” achieving his goal. Gavin laughed Tuesday at the obviousness of a question about whether he’s trying to prove he can stick in the majors, especially after a two-day stint earlier this season when he was called up as emergency depth, Larry traveled to Chicago to see him, and he didn’t play.
Gavin is not always mentioned as an established core piece whose future with the White Sox is assured for years to come. But right field is unsettled for the club, and with all the work he has put in to make himself viable defensively, this is a moment Gavin can seize to prove that he should be the guy. It could put a lot of pressure on this stretch, which already comes with the weight of trying to keep the White Sox atop the AL Central.
“This is what you dream about, what you play for,” Gavin said. “You play to have fun, but you play to win games, to win a World Series. To be part of that, in the middle of it. June and July are important months. This is why you do what you do.”
“Unfortunately I do know that there’s going to be many more ups and downs,” Larry said. “He’s so different than I am, his makeup. With the exception of last night because he was extremely happy, most games you can’t tell if he went 0-for-5 or 5-for-5. To me, that’s a quality that you need. I didn’t have it and it probably hurt me. He’s just that sort of level-headed person that kind of takes things in stride. He’ll hopefully be ready to go today and see what happens.”
Gavin’s former teammate at Triple-A Charlotte, Burger has been named to the All-Star Futures Game roster for next month, along with recent international signing Yoelqui Céspedes. Burger entered Wednesday night hitting .317/.365/.593 with 10 home runs in 41 games this season, while Céspedes appeared in his 10th career professional game at High-A Winston-Salem, hitting his second home run. But the pair were throwing partners during minor-league spring training, goofily unleashing their would-be pitching arsenals on each other, which includes a lot of knuckleballs from Céspedes. It was enough time to leave an impression.
“He’s a stud,” Burger said of Céspedes. “His pop is unbelievable. Power is ridiculous.”
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Burger has attracted attention recently for expanding to play second base twice per week at Triple A, potentially providing the sort of multi-position versatility that helped Gavin reach the majors. Perhaps more important has been a steady uptick in his production against right-handed pitching after he showed a troubling platoon split early on. Over the past three weeks, Burger thinks his plate approach has become less reactive and more focused.
“It’s kind of the basis of how teams are pitching me, but also I don’t want to get away from my strengths,” Burger said. “It’s sitting on a certain pitch. I don’t want to be stuck in between a fastball or a slider, so it’s kind of going into that at-bat knowing my plan and whether I’m hunting a fastball this entire at-bat or hunting a breaking ball that’s going to be over the plate. That’s kind of what I’ve done and I think previously I was kind of in between. I’d be like, ‘I’m going to hunt the fastball this first pitch’ and they drop in a slider and then I’m like, ‘Oh, maybe they’re just going to throw me sliders’ and then I get beat by the fastball. Being very strong in my approach has definitely helped.”
(Photo of Gavin Sheets: Charles Rex Arbogast / Associated Press)