This story was excerpted from AJ Cassavell's Padres Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
Gavin Sheets had a decision to make this offseason. A big one.
The lefty slugger had been non-tendered by the White Sox. He was a free agent. For the first time in his career, he could choose where to play. And with that choice came a process he’d never navigated before.
Larry Sheets had. Gavin’s father, who spent eight seasons in the big leagues from 1984-93, had already experienced many of the situations Gavin is now experiencing as he crafts his own big league path.
“It’s still one of those things where, to this day, he’s still helping me through different journeys, different situations,” Gavin said. “Just having someone I can call on and say, ‘This is what I’m going through in the big leagues now. How do you handle failure? How do you handle success? How do you handle a change of scenery?’ It’s not really about: This is what he taught me from an early age. It’s more: This is a sounding board I have for so many different situations.”
Situations like this past offseason, when Sheets was coming off a struggle of a 2024 campaign. The White Sox had set a record for the most losses, and he had posted a second straight poor season. Sheets was somewhat stunned when he was cut, but he also had a choice of his next move.
“[My dad] said, ‘You want to go somewhere where you feel like you’re wanted,’” Sheets recalled. “That was the most important thing. He said, ‘You’ll know.’ I talked to about eight teams. He was like, ‘You’re going to have a feeling with one team where you’re like, "This is the place that wants me." Don’t go somewhere that’s a business decision. Don’t go somewhere for the location. Go somewhere that you’re wanted.’”
Larry was drawing on past experiences. He’d spent most of his career in Baltimore, then bounced around after leaving the Orioles.
“He’s like, ‘Once you leave the team you’re homegrown with, you just become a piece,’” Gavin said. “'There’s nothing tying you there. They’re not the team that drafted you, not the team that brought you up. You need to go somewhere where you’re not just a business piece.’ That really resonated with me. It changed the way I did my meetings.”
Sheets approached those meetings with questions for his suitors. He wanted to know why they were interested in him. What the fit would be. How they planned to help him maximize his talents.
On all of those fronts, the Padres were a perfect match. They needed a lefty bat with some pop. They had openings on their big league roster. They had a plan for getting more out of Sheets, who -- despite a couple of poor seasons on the South Side -- still boasted serious offensive potential.
So Sheets signed a Minors deal with a Spring Training invite and fully invested. San Diego fully invested in him. He started camp slowly, and the Padres proved their commitment. One day in early March, when Sheets wasn’t in the lineup, he spent hours at the Peoria Sports Complex batting cage, working with the hitting staff that remained behind.
That’s the day he said it all clicked. Sheets started raking. Days later, he hit two homers, including a walk-off -- against the White Sox. He mashed his way right onto the roster, then belted a pinch-hit game-tying homer against the Braves on Opening Day.
Larry Sheets’ advice proved sage. Fatherly advice often is. But especially so in this case, given the past experiences.
A year ago, as the White Sox reeled off an American League record-tying streak of 21 straight losses, Gavin struggled to grapple with the realities of non-stop losing. Guess who he called?
Larry Sheets was a member of the 1988 Orioles, the only other team in AL history to lose 21 straight games.
“He was right there with me,” Gavin said. “I was like, ‘How do you handle this? How do you navigate a clubhouse with this, a season of this?’ Having that was crazy. There’s only like 25 people you can talk to -- and he was one of them. He got me through that, helped me show up to the ballpark and know how to handle it.”
The conversations have changed this year. They’re more fun. Sheets is finally realizing his untapped potential. In 64 games, he has 11 homers and a .762 OPS. He’s played his way out of a platoon and into everyday starts.
Now, he and Larry -- also a lefty masher -- are talking about the intricacies of facing tough left-handers, of handling the grind of everyday starts. All the while, Larry stays up late watching Padres games from his home in Baltimore.
“I think he gets more nervous watching me than he did when he was playing,” Gavin said. “But he’ll never call me and tell me what I did wrong or what I need to do. He just lets me come to him with stuff.”
And it turns out, most of the situations Gavin asks about are situations Larry experienced himself, decades ago.
“The coolest thing that I can learn from him is he’ll say, ‘Hey, this is what I did wrong in these situations. This is what I wish I did differently,’” Gavin said. “He talks about getting the most out of your career.”
And now, three-plus decades after Larry’s career ended, Gavin seems to be doing exactly that.