The Nationals’ rebuild is looking to its recent championship past for a piece of the coaching puzzle.
The Nats announced Tuesday that former lefty reliever Sean Doolittle is joining the staff as a pitching strategist, who will serve as a liaison between the pitching staff and analytics department and help Dave Martinez and pitching coach Jim Hickey with strategy and mechanics.
“Sean Doolittle was always an extremely talented pitcher, but he is also one of the most intelligent baseball minds you can find,” general manager Mike Rizzo said in a statement announcing the hire. “We’re incredibly excited to have him on our staff to help guide our talented group of young pitchers.”
Doolittle retired back in September, saying ‘I might be done playing baseball, but I’m not sure if I’m done with baseball,’ and it didn’t take the 37-year-old long to prove that.
“I can’t thank the Lerner family, Mike Rizzo and Davey Martinez enough for all they’ve done for me and my family,” Doolittle said in the statement. “I love the Nationals and Washington, D.C., and look forward to this new challenge while remaining an active member of an organization that means so much to me.”
Doolittle pitched for the Nats from 2017-20, and was a fixture in the bullpen in the 2019 World Series Champions, saving 29 games in 63 appearances – and his 75 saves as a National rank third on the all-time list in the DC era of the franchise.
He had a 3.20 ERA and 112 saves in 450 2/3 innings across parts of 11 seasons with the A’s, Nats, Reds, and Mariners, but saw his career end due to injury after six appearances in a return to DC in 2022; he suffered an elbow sprain in April 2022 and missed the rest of the year, and while continuing his rehab in 2023, he suffered a partially-torn patellar tendon in his right knee and decided it was time to hang up the spikes.