Gavin Sheets turned a minor league deal into a career year, and he did it by looking more like the hitter he was at Wake Forest. He made the Padres’ Opening Day roster, started at designated hitter and homered on Opening Day before carrying that start into a season that produced career highs across the board.
That is why his name is getting searched now. Sheets, 28, finished with 124 hits, 28 doubles, 19 home runs, 71 RBIs and a.252 batting average, numbers that stand out even more against the run of his previous three seasons. From 2022 to 2024, he hit.227/.291/.386 with an 85 OPS+, a slide that followed a promising 2021 debut in which he posted a.250/.324/.506 line and a 122 OPS+ in 54 games.
The turnaround began after the 2024 season, when the White Sox non-tendered Sheets and he signed a minor league deal with San Diego. He arrived as a non-roster invite to spring training and forced the issue in camp, batting.315 with three doubles, six home runs and 13 RBIs in 24 Cactus League games for a 1.077 OPS. The Padres selected his contract to the 40-man roster, then kept him on the Opening Day roster when his bat kept showing up every time the club needed it.
The difference was not just production. Sheets went back to a more upright stance similar to the one he used at Wake Forest, brought his hands up and kept them closer to his head, and replaced his toe tap with more of a hover move. He said the goal was to keep the swing as an “A-swing,” and the mechanical changes helped his timing and athleticism in the box. They also helped him handle velocity better, especially fastballs at the top of the zone, while he became more selective and hunted pitches he could drive.
That mattered because the old version of Sheets had not always traveled well. He was a second-round pick, taken 49th overall in the 2017 MLB Draft, after leading NCAA Division I with 84 RBIs and the ACC with 21 home runs in his final season at Wake Forest. But power did not come easily in the minors, where he did not post a slugging percentage above.414 until Triple-A, even though he later slugged.507 in 2021 and.541 in 2022 at that level. The Padres got the version that finally looked synced up, and the underlying numbers backed it up: a.263 expected batting average, a.453 expected slugging percentage and a 46.5% hard-hit rate.
The unanswered part is how durable that version is. Sheets delivered the best season of his major league career by May 28, with the numbers reflecting a player who fixed his timing, tightened his zone and found a role in San Diego. The next test is whether that rebuilt swing holds once pitchers have a full book on it, or whether the breakout becomes the new baseline for a hitter who spent years looking for one.
