Dodgers Reinstate Emmet Sheehan

June 18: Sheehan has now been officially reinstated. The 40-man roster had a vacancy but is now full. Sauer was optioned as the corresponding active roster move.

June 14: The Dodgers are planning to activate right-hander Emmet Sheehan from the 60-day injured list this week, according to a report from The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya. He’ll join the big league rotation upon being activated, though Ardaya notes that the Dodgers won’t decide exactly when to activate him until after Sheehan throws his next bullpen session. Sheehan will require a 40-man roster spot once activated, so a corresponding 40-man move will be required if the Dodgers’ roster is full at that point.

Regardless of the exact timing of Sheehan’s return, getting him back figures to be a huge boost for a Dodgers rotation that recently had to move right-hander Ben Casparius onto a starter’s schedule after months of excellent numbers in relief due to a lack of viable alternatives. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Dustin May, and Clayton Kershaw are the only other healthy regular starters L.A. has rostered at the moment, with depth options like Justin Wrobleski, Bobby Miller, and Landon Knack having more or less disqualified themselves with their significant struggles when called upon for spot starts. Sheehan is a more proven commodity than those options, with 11 big league starts to his name after debuting with the Dodgers last year.

While Sheehan seems a bit safer to give the ball to than the club’s other depth options, that shouldn’t be taken to mean this is a riskless move. After all, Sheehan has a career 5.23 ERA out of the rotation in the majors and has not pitched in the big leagues since 2023 after undergoing Tommy John surgery. He looked better than that in his most recent outings, however, with a 3.68 ERA and 4.35 FIP across 22 frames in September. Sheehan seemed likely to be firmly in the Dodgers’ rotation mix for last year despite his uneven performance, but he went under the knife almost exactly 13 months ago to the day and hasn’t pitched at the big league level since.

The right-hander has made four rehab starts this year, with a 3.97 ERA in 11 1/3 innings of work during that time. That overall line doesn’t do Sheehan’s performance in those four outings justice; he’s struck out 44.7% of his opponents while rehabbing and limited opposing batters to just one walk. That’s come against minor league hitters, of course, and the jump from minor league opponents to the big leagues is larger than ever these days. Even so, it’s an undeniably encouraging sign that he’s been able to punch out that many hitters even as he’s rebuilding to a starter’s workload.

Once activated, it wouldn’t be a shock to see the Dodgers ease Sheehan into the starting rotation. He’s only built up to 63 pitches so far, which could make him a prime candidate to either be used alongside an opener or perhaps piggyback with another pitcher like Wrobleski or Matt Sauer. In any case, adding another arm to a fraught Dodgers rotation that seems unlikely to get further reinforcements before Shohei Ohtani’s return to pitching sometime next month has to be a significant relief for the entire pitching staff.