Everybody knows how talented the top of the Dodgers' rotation is. There are few, if any, teams that can run out a group as skilled as Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Shohei Ohtani. However, with how the Dodgers like to manage their innings and the long injury history associated with a few of their top arms, the back end of the Dodgers' rotation may be just as crucial to their quest to defend their World Series title.
With Blake Snell likely delayed to start the season due to offseason shoulder soreness, there are two open spots in the rotation, and a collection of talented arms with their own injury histories vying for the spots. Roki Sasaki, one of last year's top free-agent additions, had a shoulder impingement last year and previous Tommy John concerns. Emmet Sheehan missed the entire 2024 season after having Tommy John surgery, and River Ryan was sidelined all of last season after the same procedure.
This season, all three have come into camp healthy and are trying to put their past injuries behind them and solidify their place in the starting rotation.
"I'm just trying to set myself up as best as possible to be healthy at the end of the year and contribute at the end of this year," said Sheehan before a spring training game. "Whether that's getting stronger, moving a little bit better, understanding my throw a little bit better."
Sheehan had the biggest workload of the three pitchers last season. After an extended ramp-up following surgery, he threw 17.2 innings at Triple-A, then was called up to the big leagues and pitched 73.1 innings for the Dodgers, registering a 2.82 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, and 30.6% strikeout rate in 15 appearances (12 starts). However, when the postseason hit, Sheehan was moved into the bullpen, where he struggled to an 8.59 ERA in 7.1 innings over six appearances. Still, those first playoff innings were a crucial learning experience for the 26-year-old.
"I think just being able to contribute and help in the playoffs was a really great feeling," explained Sheehan. "I struggled early in the playoffs a lot, so to be able to turn that around towards the end was a great feeling."
While it was a tough lesson to learn, the reliever mindset of being completely locked in from pitch one is something that Sheehan believes could help him in his approach as a starter in 2026: "Coming out of the bullpen, just being ready from pitch one is an advantage as a pitcher. Hitters only get three or four at-bats a game, so they're gonna be ready for every pitch. If you're not completely locked in when you get out there, you're at a disadvantage. I think it's good to have a mix of both because, starting, you have to figure out how to navigate a lineup maybe three times, where you shouldn't show all your cards early, and then maybe save them for later. But as a bullpen guy, you're only facing five or six hitters at the most, and you can show all your cards whenever you want. But I think it's a good mix."
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Showing all of his cards for Sheehan in 2025 meant relying on his slider more often. He upped the usage significantly in 2025, throwing it 30% of the time overall and nearly 41% of the time to righties after throwing it 20% of the time and 34% of the time to righties in 2023. The pitch registered a 24.4% swinging strike rate (SwStr%) overall and was also a good two-strike pitch to lefties with a 32.4% PutAway Rate, which measures how often a two-strike pitch results in a strikeout. However, the pitch did get hit hard by lefties, so Sheehan will likely need to lean more on his changeup to get ahead of lefties early in the count. The pitch had good zone and strike rates and didn't give up hard contact, but he used it in two-strike counts to lefties more often than the slider, despite it having a worse SwStr%.
The other change for Sheehan last season was raising his arm angle from about 30 degrees in 2023 to 35 degrees in 2025.
"When my delivery was right, before I got called up in 2023 in Double-A, I was throwing harder, I was feeling better, my arm slot was a little bit higher," recalled Sheehan. "When I got up to the big leagues, for whatever reason that year, [my arm slot] just dropped naturally. Getting back to the way the throw was before, and the way it was supposed to be, was big."
That five-degree difference may not seem like a major change, but it led to a change in his four-seam fastball shape, losing horizontal movement and gaining vertical movement. That was crucial for Sheehan since he also raised the high location on his four-seam fastball by 10%, keeping it up in the zone 73% of the time in 2025. That's a perfect approach for a fastball that is now flatter than in 2023 and is a big reason why Sheehan registered such a high SwStr% on his four-seam fastball.
Given his successful 90 total innings last year, Sheehan seems like a good bet to grab some of the final rotation spots, and the Dodgers are currently giving him that opportunity. It's a role that could propel him to a pretty big season if injuries around him allow him to hold onto the spot.
But the final spot in the rotation is a little more up for grabs. Roki Sasaki is the bigger name and has been working on adding a crucial third pitch this offseason, but that is still a work in progress. Considering that his four-seam fastball also posted a 5.5% SwStr% last season, which was 4th percentile in baseball, the Dodgers may still feel like he needs time in the minor leagues to build out his pitch mix.
That could open up a spot in the rotation for River Ryan.
The 27-year-old was an 11th-round pick for the Dodgers out of UNC Pembroke back in 2021, where he was primarily an infielder until his final year. He quickly emerged as a really intriguing pitcher in their system. By 2023, he was the 14th-ranked prospect in their system and shot up to 5th before the 2024 season. In that season, he was electric in 24.1 minor league innings before getting a shot with the Dodgers. He pitched to a 1.33 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, and 18/9 K/BB ratio in 20.1 innings before tearing his UCL after an August start against the Pirates.
Ryan missed the entirety of the 2025 season, but that had more to do with the success of the Dodgers' minor league teams and the shorter minor league season.
"Last year, I had a normal rehab process here in Arizona. I did my live outings, and, unfortunately, when I was done with my lives out here, there wasn't anywhere to go do rehab outings," explained Ryan. "All the minor league seasons were over, so it was either jump straight from throwing in the backfield to pitching in the postseason, which I was prepared to do, but we all had a talk, and came to the consensus of just having a normal off-season. So I shut it down for a little bit at the end of the year, and then rebuilt my arm throughout the off-season, and had a normal throwing progression. It's led me to have a normal offseason, normal spring training, and be ready for opening day."
So what did a healthy offseason for Ryan look like?
"Just really fine-tuning my arsenal," he explained. "Learning what pitches are my out pitches. What pitches can I go to to get to two strikes as fast as I possibly can? Then anything goes from there."
The out pitches for Ryan are most likely a slider that he threw to righties almost 40% of the time in 2024. The pitch didn't miss tons of bats overall in that small 20-inning sample, but it did post a nearly 30% PutAway Rate, which suggests that it would certainly work as a two-strike pitch for righties. He also has a two-plane curveball that missed plenty of bats against lefties and an upper-90s fastball with ride that should succeed up in the zone, especially since he has a sinker and cutter as well to keep hitters from sitting on the four-seamer.
From a pure stuff standpoint, Ryan has everything you look for in a pitcher, which is why he's currently the 55th-ranked prospect in baseball, according to Keith Law. His arsenal is going to be "relatively the same," heading into 2026, but the bigger change for Ryan has been "fine-tuning what gets [him] to two strikes as fast as possible."
That could be the silver lining of the injury, which allowed him to focus on the mental side of pitching as well: It was just diving into the cerebral side of how to get guys out and how to get them out fast, and how to collect punchouts when I can... It was just watching a lot of video of myself, especially early on, from where I started to where I am now. Noticing the changes and what works and building a routine based on what has worked for me."
Of course, the other focus for Ryan was on getting his body to a point where he felt like it could withstand the demands of a full MLB season.
"It was really just trying to put on weight when I was down and to be as healthy as I can coming into the year and manage a workload that I'm prepared to manage," he detailed. "When I tore my UCL in 2024, I was 190-195 pounds, and I was like, 'Dude, I really need to make a change.' I just really got into the weight room and worked my butt off in there. I ate as much as I could, and I got to like 231 [pounds], and I noticed that my body was able to take the high intensity and high velocity throws for a lot longer. I was able to maintain a lot of stamina instead of having to work so hard."
While we often correlate increased muscle with added velocity, which could certainly be true for Ryan, the bigger issue is how it improves a pitcher's health. If a pitcher lacks lower-body strength, then when their legs fatigue and aren't able to drive down the mound as well, a pitcher's arm has to compensate. Not only does that put extra wear and tear on the arm over a game, but it also means that the arm is trying to create velocity on each pitch that the legs are no longer able to supply. We saw added muscle help Carlos Rodon, who battled injuries early in his career before adding 20+ pounds of muscle to his lower body before the 2022 season and pitching 132.2 innings in a breakout season.
Perhaps a similar type of breakout is in the cards for Ryan, but his main priority is far simpler than that.
"My main goal is to have a healthy season," he said quickly. "I think it would build a lot of assurance and confidence in the things that I've been through to know that my body can handle it."
For Ryan, he doesn't care if that fully healthy season comes in the rotation or not: "I'm just doing everything I can to prepare myself for any role and any situation. Obviously, I want to be in the starting rotation, and I think I have a lot to offer, but I also know that we have a ton of guys, and the main goal is to be healthy and pitch in the big leagues. Whether that's in the starting rotation or coming out of the bullpen, I'm prepared for both."
Dodgers fans and fantasy managers alike may hope to see him coming out of the rotation because his upside could be a real difference-maker for the Dodgers this season.
