Dodgers Interview: Edman provides key health update to fans

LOS ANGELES — Tommy Edman showed up at DodgerFest on Saturday with a small visual that mattered: no boot. The utility man said his ankle is trending the right way, and he sounded relieved to be moving normally again. With spring work beginning, Edman made it clear he’s thinking long-term, even if Opening Day is still on his mind.

“Ankle’s feeling great,” Edman said. “I’ve hit every checkpoint along the way of the recovery. I haven’t had any setbacks so far, and everything’s feeling good. It feels good to have the boot off and be walking around and getting back into some baseball activities. They just started this past week, so I’m encouraged. I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to get my ankle to a point where it’s 100% and put all those issues behind me.”

Edman said the plan this spring is to be patient, even if that’s the hardest part. “I guess I am taking it somewhat slow just because I need to be patient to make sure once I get back to playing I don’t have any issues again,” he said. “With the ankle, it tends to be a slower recovery. There’s not much blood flow there, and you need to get back to having full range in order to do acceleration and all the stuff you do on the baseball field. That’s a really hard thing for us as baseball players, to be patient and take our time with our steps.”

What encouraged him most was what has not happened in rehab so far. “The really troublesome area last year was the inside, and I haven’t had any issues with that during recovery,” Edman said. “That’s the main thing we’ve been watching out for. So I’m encouraged with everything so far.”

When it came to deciding on surgery, Edman said it had been building for a while. “We were talking about it kind of throughout the year,” he said, “because I’d sprained the same thing so many times over the past two years that we just had to go in there and get some imaging, see if there was anything that could be fixed from the ligament standpoint, and also some other things to clean up in the bones. After looking at the imaging, it made sense to go in there and clean it up, get it all fixed.”

He described the message he got on the other side of the procedure as straightforward. “After the surgery, they basically said it was pretty straightforward,” Edman said. “As long as I have a good rehab process, it should be much better.”

Opening Day is still on the table, but Edman was careful about how he framed it. “It’s a possibility,” he said. “I think it all depends on how the progression goes along. I’m not putting that as a hard line in the sand. I am doing everything I can to be ready for Opening Day, but if my ankle comes around to that time and it’s still at 90%, not quite where I need it to be, I’m going to do my best to be patient with it. Make sure I’m back to 100% for the rest of the year.”

The ankle was a major issue for the Dodger utility man in 2025, a season in which he was limited to just 97 games. Edman landed on the injured list with a sprained right ankle twice during the regular season. In his second IL stint in August, the Dodgers brought him back slowly to give his ankle as much time as possible to heal up. But it still bothered Edman during the championship run, limiting him to playing the infield until Andy Pages‘ poor hitting made it necessary to slot him into center field during the World Series (except for that ONE PLAY).

As far as the upcoming season goes, Edman pointed to what he expects will be the last and toughest checkpoint once he’s closer to full go. “For me last year and the past couple of years, the hardest thing was stealing bases and accelerating,” he said. “Because of how much range of motion you need in your ankle, and the force you need to produce to accelerate. That’ll probably be one of the last checkpoints that I need to hit, making sure I can really accelerate the way that I need to.”

Edman connected the injury to the way his season felt at the plate, too, especially the combination of compensation and inconsistent rhythm. “I probably got into some bad mechanical habits because I wasn’t wanting to put as much force into that right side as I would otherwise,” he said. “And then obviously, just the rhythm of not getting the consistent at-bats over the course of seven months. But I think it was more bad habits than anything.”

Defensively, he sounded motivated more than satisfied. “I still feel like I didn’t play that well defensively last year,” Edman said. “But I think I can be much better both in second and center. Primarily with the first step and getting more range off the bat, I think that’ll be a big improvement from last year.”

And even after two championship seasons, Edman said he still notices the tone the front office sets when it keeps adding. “I think I shouldn’t be surprised based on how the front office has been the last couple years,” he said, “but it still is pretty awesome to see them make those moves and still be so aggressive coming off of two World Series championships. It sends a message that we’re not satisfied with just two. We’re going to win as many World Series championships as we can, and we’re going to do everything we can to get the best players possible to do so.”

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