November 9: Jesse Dougherty of The Washington Post has relayed the financials of Doolittle’s deal on Twitter. The lefty will make a $1.5MM salary if he makes the team with various incentives available based on games pitched. He’ll earn an extra $100K for getting into 6, 10 and 14 games, $150K at 18, 22, 26 and 30, $200K for 34, 38 and 42, then $250K for 46, 54 and 58.
November 6: The Nationals have just announced a Minor League contract with veteran reliever Sean Doolittle. The agreement includes an invitation to 2023 Major League Spring Training. The lefty had recently expressed his desire to pitch in 2023 and welcomed a return to Washington.
Doolittle returned for a fifth season with the Nationals in 2022 after spending the 2021 season with the Reds and the Mariners. However, the 36-year-old dealt with an elbow sprain in mid-April and only appeared in six games, throwing 5 1/3 scoreless innings and allowing only one of the seventeen batters he faced to reach base. While working his way back from the issue, the lefty experienced a setback that forced him to undergo an internal brace procedure in mid-July to repair damage to the UCL in his throwing elbow. The internal brace procedure came with an expected five-to-six-month recovery timetable, so there is hope that Doolittle will be ready by the start of Spring Training.
As a team, the Nationals had a roughly average bullpen, pitching to a collective solid 3.84 ERA (15th lowest), a low 21.5% strikeout rate (25th lowest), and a good 8.6% walk rate (11th lowest). However, as discussed in MLBTR’s Offseason Outlook, the Nationals were likely candidates to add to their bullpen, with Erasmo Ramirez and Steve Cishek entering free agency and Tanner Rainey likely to miss most or all of 2023 due to Tommy John surgery.
With the Nats in the midst of a rebuild and ownership exploring a sale of the team, Doolittle represents a low-risk high-reward relief pitcher that may be flipped for prospects at the 2023 Trade Deadline.
Glad to hear the Nats are doing Doo a solid. Hope he can still genuinely contribute to the big league club.
DOOO!
Not many people would want to play for a team that will most likely lose 100 games next season.
If he’s healthy and pitching well, he will be on a contending team at the end of July.
Stove is HOT
Mam I hope you post this same comment on every minor league signing for the rest of the off-season cuz that was just so hilarious. Great original content, thank you
An organization and a player who genuinely love each other.
How “high reward” is he though, actually?
It doesn’t matter. Nats fans love him.
He gave up zero runs in the 6 games he appeared in before getting hurt last season.
According to your praise of that factoid, he should have earned a multi-year, eight figure contract!
How long would Bryce Harper be out after TJS?
Think the recovery time is five months for a non pitcher so he should do it now.
Print the playoff tickets. This puts them in a class of their own. Lol