PHILADELPHIA — Xander Bogaerts spends a lot of time in the trainers’ room after games.
He has a treatment routine that prioritizes keeping his body right for the relentlessness of playing baseball almost every one of the 187 days that comprise the MLB season from spring to autumn.
But there he was, sitting in the chair from his locker arranged in a semicircle with several other chairs occupied by teammates shortly after a recent game.
In low tones, beverages in hand, the players discussed what was going on with the team.
As the evening wore on, long after the media and most players had departed, the group was still talking.
“That was my first time having a beer after the game,” Bogaerts said. “It was nice. I told him, ‘It won’t be my last.’”
Him was Gavin Sheets. It was at Sheets’ invitation that Bogaerts joined the group that night. Manny Machado was there. Joe Musgrove is a regular. Jackson Merrill is always there.
Some nights, Sheets will head to the other side of the clubhouse and sit between Nick Castellanos and Ramón Laureano to chat alongside Fernando Tatis Jr.
You don’t ever know who Sheets will be talking to before or after a game. He could be sitting engaged in a long conversation with an athletic trainer and a relief pitcher, as he was Sunday morning in Washington, well before most of the team’s regulars arrived at Nationals Park.
“His personality is just unbelievable,” said Dave Macias, the Padres’ first base and outfield coach. “He’s such a good connector. He’s the college guy that connects, obviously, well with the college guys. But he will connect with the Dominican, the Venezuelan, the Mexican, the Puerto Rican. He’s just such an unbelievable connector just because of his personality.”
If the Padres are going to make the postseason again, it will be because Machado, Merrill and Tatis contribute offensively to a far greater extent than they have in the season’s first two months.
The team will almost certainly need to acquire some outside help for its starting rotation.
And if the Padres are around for the games that matter most in October, it will be because they didn’t fracture while things weren’t going well in April and May.
Right there at the center of the effort to make sure the clubhouse remains cohesive is Sheets.
The word Macias used to describe Sheets is clearly something that has been discussed among people in the organization. A half dozen of them used the word while passionately describing the element of leadership Sheets brings to the club.
“He’s a connector,” Craig Stammen said.
When Stammen took the job as Padres manager in November and began checking in with players, he asked which of their teammates they had spoken with since the season ended.
Sheets’ answer was that he had talked with pretty much everybody.
“He’s a relational person, and he has a bigger view of what this is about,” Stammen said. “It’s not just about winning and losing, but about treating people the right way and building something that is long-lasting.”
Every team goes through slumps and loses more than it feels like it should. Sheets believes in the power of a group and its members’ enjoyment of each other’s company to help pave over cracks.
“I love getting guys together,” he said. “I love just the family feel. I love building relationships. The more that everybody is pulling from the same string, the more everybody gets to hang out together, the better it is going to be. You know, it’s been a tough stretch. It is what it is. And I think that when we cannot isolate ourselves through it and go through it together, pull the guys together and just take a step back and enjoy ourselves.
“Just talking ball. Talking about how we feel together, talking about what we saw together, talking about how we get out of it together. I think that’s how you get the best version. Offensively, we’re in it together, and we’re all kind of struggling right now. And I think instead of everybody going off their individual way trying to figure out themselves, let’s do it together. It’s only going to help over 162.”
Sheets is not alone in considering the group mentality a winning mentality. It is a belief held by most players who have been around the major leagues for any length of time.
“I think that is very important,” said Castellanos, a veteran of 14 big league seasons. “Every team I have been on that is successful has that.”
No matter how many “glue guys” a team has, though, sticking together is not going to mean much without production.
What makes Sheets being so impactful off the field such a worthwhile part of his story is that he has arguably been the Padres’ most impactful player on the field as they have somehow compiled a 32-26 record despite having MLB’s most meager offense.
Really, it is hardly arguable.
Sheets’ .807 OPS leads the team. He is batting .353 with a 1.362 OPS in close-and-late situations. He is the only player in MLB history to hit three three-run home runs in the ninth inning in a season. Seven of his nine homers have given the Padres a lead.
“He has been anything you could ask for from a player on the team,” Stammen said.
Jackson Merrill and Ty France douse Gavin Sheets after his walk-off homer against the Colorado Rockies during the ninth inning at Petco Park on Friday, April 10, 2026 in San Diego, California. (Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Indeed. Sheets has even been a left fielder again. And he has been a shockingly good one for a guy who’s built like a tight end.
“He’s a really good athlete,” Macias said. “I bet if you put a basketball in his hand, he’s probably gonna go out there and probably could have played next-level basketball. You put a football in his hand, he wings that thing. He’s a great athlete.”
Sheets essentially learned left field on the fly last season to fill that void until the Padres traded for Laureano at the deadline.
Then, after a 2025 season in which he set career highs in plate appearances (545), home runs (19), doubles (28) and RBIs (71), Sheets was set to be part of a platoon at first base this season. It is his preferred position, and he happily focused on working there during the offseason.
The left-handed hitter started 11 of the Padres’ first 15 games at first base. But he was hitting just a bit over .200 and the Padres started working in Ty France, who is a superior defender at first and is batting .286 with six home runs and four doubles in 105 at-bats.
However, as he did after losing his job to Laureano last August, Sheets started hitting and forced his way back into the lineup.
Miguel Andujar, Gavin Sheets and Manny Machado celebrate after Machado’s home run against the Philadelphia Phillies during the fourth inning at Petco Park on Tuesday, May 26, 2026 in San Diego, California. (Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Many nights, the solution has been to put him in left field. Sheets has started all but one of the Padres’ past 21 games — nine at first base, nine in left field and two as the designated hitter.
Good thing he trimmed down and kept working in the outfield during the winter. Sheets burns to be an everyday player, to contribute.
“I want to be on the field,” he said. “Whatever gets me in the lineup and whatever gets our best lineup out there, I want to be able to be that option.”
That is apparent, perhaps above all else.
“You can’t discount how much he puts into it,” Macias said. “It goes to show you what a good teammate he is. He’s willing to help in so many ways.”
