C’s Chat – 2022 Vancouver Canadians LHP #22 Sean Mellen – C's Plus Baseball

2021-2022 Vancouver Canadians pitcher Sean Mellen enters the chat room for the latest edition of C’s Chat.

The Boston native was a multi-sport athlete at Norwood High School where he lettered in hockey in all four years while lettering three times in football and baseball. Among the highlights were a no-hitter in his senior year of 2016 and a state championship in 2015 in which he struck out 14 hitters in a complete game effort against St. Peter-Marian in the final, marking Norwood’s first state title in 72 years.

Mellen would remain in Beantown when he was recruited by the Northeastern Huskies. His freshman season in 2017 saw him pick up a victory and strike out 22 batters in 20 innings but that was marred by 28 walks. He would log more innings in summer college ball with the Worcester Bravehearts of the Futures League. In 38 frames, he offset 33 walks with 63 strikeouts while posting an earned run average of 3.08.

Things went much better in 2018 when Mellen set the tone with an 11-strikeout performance over five innings to earn the win over Creighton on February 17. The lefthander also made history for the Huskies by earning the win with seven innings of one-run ball against Missouri on February 28, the first time Northeastern defeated a team in the Southeast Conference. Another key moment that season was Mellen no-hitting Auburn into the eighth inning and striking out eight in a win over the previously undefeated Tigers on March 4. Unfortunately, he would be sidelined with a back injury and he would miss out on the Huskies first NCAA Tournament berth since 2003.

Despite that setback, Mellen finished the year with 10 wins and a 2.28 earned run average and struck out 81 batters against 37 walks in 79 innings. He was named to the 2018 All-American Second Team and the 2019 NCAA Division I Preseason All-American Second Team.

That earned Mellen some draft buzz leading up to 2019 where he was rated as the number two prospect in Massachusetts and the number four prospect in the Colonial Athletic Association by Baseball America. He backed up those honours by turning in a season in which he went 5-2 with a 3.10 ERA and totalled 112 strikeouts against 39 free passes in 90 innings for Northeastern.

Baseball America rated Mellen as the 387th best prospect for the 2019 MLB Draft.

“A 6-foot-5, 215-pound lefthander, Mellen doesn’t have big stuff, but he’s performed in a big way the last two years as a starter for Northeastern and posted a 2.76 ERA this spring through 13 starts and 78 innings. Mellen’s fastball is a below-average offering in the upper 80s and he has two below-average breaking balls, but he generates a surprising amount of whiffs thanks to a deceptive, funky delivery. Mellen’s changeup is his best pitch, but despite his size and handedness it might be tough to take that profile in the top 10 rounds unless a team thinks more velocity will come as Mellen gets further away from back surgery last fall.”

The Los Angeles Dodgers would draft Mellen in the 14th round in 2019 and give him a $125,000 signing bonus. He made his pro debut with one outing in the Arizona League but he would not throw another regular season pitch until June of 2021 due to Covid and his release from the Dodgers on April 28. Fortunately, he would sign as a free agent with the Toronto Blue Jays on May 26.

The Dunedin debut for Mellen could not have gone much better. He tossed 1-1/3 shutout innings and struck out three in Bradenton in his Jays debut on June 3 before notching his first win in Lakeland with 2-1/3 scoreless frames with three punchouts on June 11. After five spotless appearances in which he rang up 11 strikeouts with zero walks over 8-2/3 innings, Mellen got the call to High-A Vancouver, or Hillsboro in this case, as the C’s had to spend the year in Oregon thanks to the border closure caused by COVID. With the Canadians, he pitched two shutout innings at Eugene on June 27 and struck out four over 3-1/3 scoreless stanzas against Everett on July 24 before going back down to Dunedin to finish the season.

In 2022, Mellen was back with Monty’s Mounties but it would not be for long. He began the season with 2-2/3 shutout innings and four Ks in an eventual Opening Night win at Spokane on April 8. He racked up a career-high eight strikeouts in Tri-City on April 12 before earning his first win in a C’s uniform with two shutout innings on April 17. His Nat Bailey Stadium debut/finale was against Eugene on April 23 in which he allowed a run but struck out four over 2-1/3 innings of relief. After a shutout frame in Hillsboro on April 26, Mellen got the call to go to Double-A New Hampshire.

ROSTER MOVES:

⬅️ LHP Sean Mellen transferred from Vancouver to Double-A New Hampshire.
➡️ RHP Ryan Boyer transferred from Low-A Dunedin to Vancouver. He will wear #22. pic.twitter.com/3UkBsxJK5b
— Vancouver Canadians (@vancanadians) April 27, 2022

Mellen turned in a respectable showing in the Eastern League with a 3.27 ERA over 55 innings and a strikeout-walk total of 61-24 while collecting two saves and four holds. He did go back to Dunedin for a stint on the Development List in late August and was put on the seven-day injured list but he returned for one September appearance in which he threw a perfect frame against Harrisburg on September 17.

C’s Plus Baseball caught up with the 25-year-old Mellen prior to reporting to Dunedin for Spring Training. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

C’s Plus Baseball – Let’s take it from the beginning. When did baseball start for you?

Sean Mellen – I was probably four or five when I started in like T-ball, little league, kind of around that. So pretty young, but I kind of always had a lot of interest in it growing up, especially in the Boston area where sports are a big deal and you watch TV, you see all the games on. So growing up you kind of watch every game. Seeing all the Red Sox-Yankees games, like that type of rivalry gets you invested, especially ’03 and ’04. It gets you really into the game and highlights really what the best parts about baseball are.

CPB – You played some football and you played some hockey. What made you decide on baseball in the end?

SM – I think for me, baseball is kind of like your first love growing up so it’s probably the sport that I could see myself kind of playing the longest. Like not only in college but after college. So I think that kind of made the decision a lot easier for me where schools kept coming and calling and I kind of realized that it was definitely something that I wanted to do not only in college but professionally as well.

CPB – And you decided to become a pitcher. When did you start doing that full-time?

SM – I probably made the switch from attempting to hit (laugh) even at all. Probably like my junior year of high school, right around there. Probably going into my junior year. I still tried to hit a little bit but there’s a reason I’m a pitcher.

CPB – Your time in Northeastern. You got to stay home in your hometown of Boston. When you look back on your experience, what did you learn about being a pitcher there?

SM – I learned a ton. I learned how to deal with failure, how to handle success, how to kind of work every day, how to handle pitching with expectations and how to handle going into big spots and big games and against big-time teams and having to realize that you’ve gotta be the guy that day to give your team a chance to win. I think kind of like anyone, whether you’re an athlete or not, you learn a ton in college. I was no different learning just so much about the game from my coaches and basically how to be a professional and how to handle baseball as a job and how to handle the ups and downs of the game.

CPB – What would you say was your best moment or your best game at Northeastern?

SM – Probably the best moment was we got in that at-large bid to a regional my sophomore year. But I would say my best game and kind of in the same breath, our best moment which kind of propelled us to that regional was against Auburn my sophomore year in 2018. I think I was four outs away from a no-hitter against them down at Auburn and they were like 16 and-0 or something and Casey Mize threw a no-hitter the night before and we kind of needed to get a big win down there to make a statement nationally. So being able to go out and kind of prove that we were for real basically and kind of being able to be the guy that was like, ‘Gimme the ball, I can go out there and I got us today’ type of mentality. We lost the first two games but being able to be the one who stopped that and made a statement—didn’t get the no-hitter that day which was tough— but four outs away wasn’t too bad.

CPB -Your coach there was Mike Glavine, the brother of Tom Glavine. How instrumental was he in your time at Northeastern?

SM – Coach Glav was as big as anyone for me. I definitely came into college pretty raw and it wasn’t always pretty early on but he stuck with me and believed in me. He stood by me through all my ups and downs and has had as big of an impact on my baseball career as pretty much anyone. I was throwing there (at Northeastern) the last couple of weeks. He makes sure I’m doing well and he checks in during the season. He’s as good of a coach as you’re gonna find in college baseball. He kind of made sure that I was always working, I was always doing the right things by getting treatment, getting after it in the weight room and how to handle the downtime of professional baseball and the off-season. Teaching me to be a professional while being in college, is such a hard thing to balance between winning and getting people prepared. And I think he does as good of a job as anyone where he puts winning first and wants to win more than anything else. But he also teaches you how to be a professional and how to basically treat baseball as your life and as your job because that’s kind of what it is once you get to that level.

CPB – Did you ever have a chance to interact with Tom Glavine because he’s from the Boston area and also like you, a hockey player in the past? Did you get a chance to talk to him at all?

SM – He was down at that Auburn series when we played him there. I didn’t really get a chance to talk to him too much. He kind of was walking by in passing because his son (lefthander Peyton Glavine) was on the Auburn team actually so it was pretty cool to see. He was on the field with Coach Glav before the game and everything, so it was pretty cool to see someone as good of a left-handed pitcher as there’s ever been. So it’s pretty beneficial when you see that and you can talk to Coach Glav and kind of hear his insights about his own brother and he doesn’t have to look too far for some left-handed pitching advice.

CPB – I’m going to get in trouble with the Vancouver fan base for asking this. I know you’re a Red Sox fan, a Bruins fan, uh, Patriots fan of course. The Bruins beating the Canucks in the Stanley Cup final just over a decade ago. Do you have memories of that?

SM – Oh yeah. I remember that that was a good time. (laughs), one that wouldn’t be too popular in Vancouver. I remember that series that was probably one of the better Cup finals I think I’ve ever seen between the two teams. It was intense, it was physical, it got nasty. Both teams were playing as good as they could. Tim Thomas just stood on his head for a couple too many games for some Vancouver fans. But that was a lot of fun for me as a kid growing up, especially as a hockey player in the area. It’s always special to see your teams win a championship, your own hometown teams. So growing up in Boston I was definitely spoiled in that regard.

CPB – What position did you play in hockey?

SM – I was mainly like a forward, a center. I played a little bit of defence here and there growing up, but as I got a little older it was mainly kind of playing center, playing a little wing here and there. You can’t beat hockey, can’t beat the physicality and the competitiveness and the camaraderie it brings you and it carries over into baseball.

CPB – You get drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers. What was your draft day experience like? Did you have any idea it was going to be the Dodgers who would take you?

SM – It was a pretty interesting day. I kind of had a little bit of an idea that they were (interested). I think we kind of had something with them the day before in the works. There were a couple teams I kind of cut deals with a little bit and I was kind of stunned when it was them. I was on the phone with the Phillies at the time I got drafted. So that was an interesting time. It was definitely an interesting day. It’s a lot of fun and a lot of emotions. There were ups and downs throughout the draft process, but in the end, it all ended up working out for me so I was grateful for getting drafted by them.

CPB – You dipped your toe on the water with the Dodgers in the Arizona League and you only had one appearance. Was that because of an innings limit as you had pitched around 100 innings or so at Northeastern?

SM – I was coming off back surgery in the fall of my junior year and then I threw 90-something innings my junior year so they kind of wanted to shut me down in rehab. So just kind of limiting wear and tear on the back. It’s kind of that soon after back surgery. But yeah, (laughs). I wouldn’t say that the Arizona League was my best performance.

CPB – What was that like pitching in the Arizona League? I imagine like the Florida Complex League, there’s not a whole lot of people in the stands and it’s kind of a very quiet environment I take it?

SM – Yeah, that was definitely a lot different experience from what I been a part of in college or even high school where if nothing else, there are parents, friends and family in the stands. It’s pretty quiet and it’s a little empty but it makes you really appreciate the game of baseball itself. The complex leagues are different because there are so many younger people in those leagues that are just uber-talented but they’re still putting together the tools and figuring out the game itself versus coming from college where the tools and the raw ability aren’t as high as that but it’s a little more polished. It was definitely an experience watching those games every day. It definitely helped me a lot as a baseball player.

CPB – How did you wind up the Blue Jays? I’m sure it was a shock to the system that the the Dodgers decided to go in another direction.

SM – That was an interesting time kind of right after I got released. It was kinda a lot of uncertainty with baseball and my future with baseball, if I was ever gonna have another opportunity to play professionally. But when the Blue Jays called, it was kind of a no-brainer decision for me of like, ‘Let’s go all in, I want to give it another shot. Why would I not?’ I would never be able to live with myself, not to just give it another opportunity to try and make it. And then basically from Day One with them, it’s been unbelievable with them – with the whole staff, the coordinators, the pitching coaches, pretty much everyone, my teammates. I can’t speak more highly of them than anyone else where it’s been a true joy and to just play for a team like that, it’s been everything you could ever dream of. You just kind of come to the field every day and you’re just having fun where you’re not worried, you’re not stressed. They do a really good job at taking care of guys and making sure to put guys in good positions to succeed. It’s a true joy to come to the field every day and you look forward to getting down to spring training and seeing everyone again and you look forward to starting the season. The season’s a grind. It’s 140 or whatever games or whatever it is now. It changes every year but it’s a little bittersweet at the end when a lot of people are looking to go home and trying to get away from baseball for a little bit. But for me, it’s like the season ends and it’s like you kind of feel like you’re missing your teammates, you’re missing your coaches, you’re missing the competitiveness and it’s like you can’t wait to get back, which is such a fun environment to be a part of because not every organization is like that.

CPB – Who got a hold of you from the Blue Jays?

SM – I’m not 100 percent sure but I’m pretty positive it was our pitching coordinator Cory Popham. I don’t know how he found me. It was an inning-and-a-third (I pitched in the Dodgers system) but thankfully he did. And then (assistant general manager) Joe Sheehan reached out to me on a Friday. I didn’t answer the first couple of phone calls. Then he sent me a text and that was about as quick of a call back as I’ve ever given someone. So I talked to him for a little bit and then signed with him maybe a day or two later and was down in Florida by Monday, Sunday, or something like that. So it was a pretty quick process because it was a pretty easy decision.

CPB – It was 2019 when you made your professional debut with the Dodgers, then Covid hits in 2020 before things kind of got back to normal in 2021. What was that like trying to prepare through Covid with all that uncertainty in the air?

SM – That was an interesting time. Thankfully I had really good resources and the Dodgers were at the time were really, really good about how they handled Covid and how they had like pretty legit thought-out plans for everyone. We were having Zoom meetings twice a week basically trying to simulate as much of a season as we could. We were trying to find fields to throw, trying to find hitters to throw to, but it was definitely a trying time. But it was nice to come back to face real hitters and real games again. It was definitely missed during that year.

CPB – You go over to Dunedin. What was that like pitching with the Dunedin Blue Jays?

SM – That was fun. That was the first time I’d really been kind of at a real affiliate for a real amount of time competing in games. The complex down in Dunedin is beautiful. You can’t ask for anything more, especially playing and competing in games again after almost two years basically where you’re competing in real games that count, that go on your permanent record. You can’t hide it or make excuses for it. So that was a lot of fun. That was kind of my first real introduction (to pro ball) with the Blue Jays and I couldn’t have enjoyed it more. The team, the staff, everyone there were as first-class as you could ever be. It was a lot of fun.

CPB – The Player Development Complex, lots of bells and whistles. Have you ever been able to work with all that technology?

SM – Oh yeah. I’ve thrown in a pitching lab, which is crazy how advanced and high-tech it is. I’ve thrown into all their TrackMan, Rapsode, Edgertronics, and all that. It’s cool to see all that type of information, I mean, that new complex is crazy with how much it has. There’s not a thing more you could even ask for if you wanted to. It’s got everything you need to help you get better as a baseball player. It’s got every resource from all the technology to the people who run the technology to help you break it down to training rooms, all that stuff. Not every team has that and it’s such an awesome thing to have in professional baseball where it makes such a difference for you as a player. There’s no excuse for you not to get better. You have everything in front of you that you need to make yourself a better baseball player.

CPB – Was there anything maybe you learned about yourself through the Player Development Complex? Is there anything that jumped out at you?

SM – Yeah, I actually had a meeting about that this off-season. Meeting sounds a lot more formal than it was (laughs). It was more just a conversation with our coordinator of like we went through the lab report and we’re going over things that it was like, ‘Alright, let’s try and fix this.’ It was just tweaking a couple of minor things with my arm path which so far this off-season have seemed to clean things up a little bit. I feel like the ball’s coming out as good as it ever has and hopefully, I can carry that over into the season. If it wasn’t really for that technology, it wouldn’t have been as easy to identify such an issue that is pretty easily fixable. It just takes time and attention to detail. So that was definitely a big help where you can kind of see the angle your arm’s getting to versus what ideal you want it at when it’s that black and white in front of you. It’s a lot easier to be like, ‘Alright, I need to fix that? How do I fix it and go about solving the issue that way?’

CPB – Your pitch mix right now, what is it that you’re throwing?

SM – So it’s a fastball, slider and changeup right now. I’ve played around with the slider over the years as it’s probably been my third pitch for a while. My best two pitches have been my fastball and changeup for probably four or five years now. It’s just kind of the slider coming into this year is probably the best it’s felt. Looking over all the numbers on it and everything is probably the best it’s been at probably in my life. Although we’ll see how that carries over into the season because it’s easy to do things during the off-season that look good and then feel good and then all of a sudden you get into real games with live bullets and it’s a lot different. So I’m hoping to carry that over into spring training into the regular season. I think if I can do that I’d put myself in a pretty good spot.

CPB – Now is it a case of grip or release point or involved with the slider?

SM – Yean, it was a little bit of everything because what it has been and what it kind of ends up being during the last couple of seasons hasn’t exactly been something to write home about. But I basically just offset the fastball and was trying to throw it like the side of my hand basically as hard as I can and basically make it replicate a fastball as best I can and let it hold its plane and do its thing instead of trying to throw this big old slider that’s not exactly the best pitch because it gets seen right out of the hand and it’s popping and it’s loopy. I think this is probably the first year where I’m pretty confident going in with the slider. It’s a nice feeling to have where you feel like you have three truly plus pitches that you can get guys out with.

CPB – Your changeup, is it a split change or a circle change?

SM – It’s closer to a circle change. It’s a pretty traditional grip. It’s just across the main two seams of a baseball where it’s not a four-seam, it’s not a two-seam grip but it’s basically kind of that cross seam with like the thumb tucked underneath the index and pinky on the side. That’s been the same grip since my sophomore year of college, so that’s five years now. It’s worked pretty well in the past so it’s not something I’d wanna completely change up. Obviously, there’s still room for improvement and things to tweak and little minor details to kind of go after but it’s been pretty good for me in the past.

CPB – And the fastball is just a four-seamer or are there any other variations like a two-seam or cut fastball?

SM – Just the traditional four-seam fastball . That’s been the bread and butter for a while. There’s nothing better than throwing just a fastball. It’s as pure as the game gets.

CPB – As far as velocity goes, have you noticed a big difference as far as your velo goes this off-season?

SM – Yeah, I think it should hopefully tick up a mile an hour or two, which would be ideal. I mean everyone wants to throw harder. It’s one of those things that no matter how hard you throw, you’re never satisfied, you want to throw harder. It’s just the competitiveness and I think everyone from seven-year-olds to 37-year-olds, everyone wants to throw harder. So that’s kind of the way the game’s going. There are other things obviously involved with what makes a good fastball but obviously the harder you throw, the harder it is to hit. (laughs) It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out but I think it’s a focus for everyone. I don’t think there’s anyone that it’s not a focus for.

CPB – In 2021, you get your promotion to Vancouver. How did you find out about going to Vancouver or in this case Hillsboro?

SM – That was fun (laughs). We were sitting in a meeting. It was probably on a Thursday we were going over kind of recapping the first couple of games of the series, going over hitters and making sure we were on the right track with how we wanted to attack them. And then our pitching coach Drew Hayes got up out of the room, he was on the phone, wandering around and then he calls me out of the meeting and grabbed me. (laughs) I had no idea what was going on. I was like this might be really good or might be really bad. But I talked to our manager Luis Hurtado, who’s one of the best guys you can ever meet in baseball. So I talked to him for a minute and he told me I was going to Vancouver. It’s just exciting. It’s just one of those things that you get a promotion, it’s fun, it’s exciting, you kind of go through all the emotions so it’s like the ups where you’re excited to get a chance to play at a higher level and then you start thinking about all the logistics. I got promoted probably at 3:30. I think my flight was at 6:30 that day. It ended up being a pretty long day. It’s all worth it. There’s never a bad time to get promoted, but I was probably at the airport maybe three hours later so I had to go pack up everything, just start throwing things in bags and then basically scrambled to the airport as fast as I could and thankfully made the flight. I got into Hillsboro, that’s probably like 3:30 am west coast time. So yeah, that was a long day but it was a good day.

CPB – What was it like pitching in Hillsboro? With Covid going on, you guys couldn’t come north of the border unfortunately. What was that whole situation like for you and the team?

SM – Yeah, that was interesting because I wanna say most of the time I was there we weren’t 100 percent sure if we were gonna be able to go back to Vancouver at all. We kept hearing, I think at one point we heard like the middle or end of July we might be able to go back and then it was like maybe September where it was just a lot of uncertainty with where we were gonna be. But Hillsboro ended up being a pretty fun place to be. I mean we weren’t exactly drawing a big crowd there not being the hometown team and not being in Vancouver. A bunch of guys on that team had played in Vancouver in 2019 and they’re telling us all about how awesome it is to play there and how it’s basically there’s not a better spot to play minor league baseball than Vancouver. So definitely a little bit of FOMO where you feel like you missed out on the Vancouver opportunity. But Hillsboro was a lot of fun. It was fun to kind of see a new place. Definitely a pitcher’s park there in Hillsboro too, which doesn’t hurt either.

CPB – In 2022, you finally do get to Vancouver. You started the year on the road, you had a nice night on opening night, striking out four over a 2-2/3 shutout innings. It was a chilly weekend in Spokane. Being from Boston you’re used to that. But what was that like staring the year with Vancouver?

SM – It was awesome. We kind of got to spend maybe three or four days there practicing. We scrimmaged with UBC. It was fun to go out in the city a couple of times, just to go grab lunch or dinner and kind of go explore the city a little bit. And then going to Spokane was definitely tough because we had a 10-day road trip or something to start the year, which was not always how you want to start it but it was fun. It was definitely really cold the first couple of weeks in Spokane and Tri-City. But it was definitely good to start the season off on the right foot. That’s something you always want to do, that first appearance where you just have a nice outing and get the ball rolling on the season the way you want it to go.

CPB – How do you prepare pitching in cold weather?

SM – I think you just got to power through. I wish there was a good secret. I think it’s just a little bit of unfortunately having some experience in it, a little mental toughness. But the only trick I got is the surgeon gloves. That’s the only trick I got. They’ll trap the heat in for you. Some layers, long sleeves, move around every chance you get before you go in the game. (laughs) Still when your number’s called, there’s only so much you can do. It’s gonna take some time to get going. It is what it is, it’s part of the game. It’s baseball. If you can’t handle the cold, you’re gonna have a tough time playing. So it’s something you just gotta deal with.

CPB – Well you finally did get to pitch once at Nat Bailey Stadium against Eugene. What was that like getting to pitch him in a real game at the Nat?

SM – That was awesome. I think it was probably the second game of the series there because we got rained out and then the Friday nooner at the Nat was the first really nice day we’d had that year. It was probably 60 degrees out. I think it was Saturday (when I pitched). It was fun. That was as good of a baseball experience as you could have. The place is into it, it’s beautiful weather. It’s what you dream about playing in front of when you’re a kid.

CPB – You get called up to New Hampshire towards the end of April. How did you find out about your promotion to the Fisher Cats?

SM – We were back in Hillsboro actually, which was pretty ironic. We played a Tuesday game in Hillsboro and I ended up going in the game. I was not fully expecting to be in that game. They called down and told me I’d be in no matter what. I was like, ‘Oh, something doesn’t seem right.’ It wasn’t my best outing but I powered through, got through the inning and then found out after the game. Phil Cundari, the pitching coach, grabbed me in the clubhouse after. He brought me in with (manager) Brent Lavallee and the whole staff and they told me, ‘I’m going home.’ My heart drops a little bit (laughs) when they tell you we’re sending you home, but yeah, it was definitely fun. That was a good day where I was kind of with a bunch of guys who I’ve known now at that point for like a year, a year and a half, who I had played with. It was a really good moment, getting sent up there and then being able to play close to home to fly into Boston. That was one of my better memories of playing pro ball.

CPB – How big of an adjustment was it for you to pitch at Double-A?

SM – A little bit, not too bad. I think my first outing, there were definitely some nerves that first time, thinking that it was gonna be a big adjustment and it was gonna be a lot different and then kind of not pitch like who I was. Then after that, realizing that that was dumb, just be who I am, do what I’m good at, avoid what I’m bad at and let the chips fall where they may. I think after my first outing, I don’t think I ever once thought about Double-A hitters or this big adjustment or anything like that. Again, it was pretty seamless after that. I think the rest of the year went pretty smooth. Definitely, some nerves that first outing in Double-A, kind of being like, hey, ‘Double-A, you kind of start to see the big leagues in sight.’ You’re close to home and you think you’re not gonna know how to get ’em out and then all of a sudden, after one outing, it’s still baseball. It’s just baseball. It’s nothing I’ve haven’t done before.

CPB – What are your thoughts heading into 2023? What do you need to do to be successful?

SM – I think it’s kind of just keeping down the same path of last year where I feel like I really hit my stride last year. Kind of felt like I had a really good offseason going into 2022 and tried to carry that momentum over. And I think this year it’s the same thing where I feel like I’ve had as good of an off-season as I could have hoped for and just trying to carry that momentum into the season where I feel like I’m in a good spot. And it’s just about kind of going out there and executing pitches. There’s not too much else to worry about. A lot of baseball is out of your control in where you start, when you pitch, how much you pitch and all that. It’s just kind of handling the small things and go from there. Just have fun playing baseball.

Sean Mellen File

Born – February 20, 1998 in Boston, Massachusetts
Bats/Throws – Left/Left
Height/Weight – 6-foot-5, 225 pounds
Uniform Numbers – Wore number 12 at Northeastern. Wore number 19 with Dunedin and 11 with Vancouver in 2021. Wore number 24 with New Hampshire in 2022.
Instagram – @seanmellen10
Fun Fact – Became the 13th pitcher in Northeastern Huskies history to reach 100 strikeouts in a season with 112 in 2019 and sat down 210 batters over 189 career innings.