Your cart

Nationals Pitcher Sean Doolittle: The Closer Role Is All About Managing Energy

Our Athletes Voice series gives athletes a forum to talk about how technology has impacted their careers and their lives away from sports. This week, Washington Nationals closer Sean Doolittle talks about weighted balls, sleep science, advanced data, and bullpen cars.

***

Sean Doolittle is one of the sport’s more cerebral players as well as a two-time All-Star pitcher—not bad for someone who was drafted and developed as a first baseman for his first three seasons before injuries prompted a position change.

Doolittle is also well known for his ginger beard, his social media posts, his equal rights advocacy, and his love of bullpen carts. (One MLB.com story referred to him as a “ballpark transportation guru.”) He was nominated for the Roberto Clemente Award in 2016 and supports veterans charities like Operation Finally Home and Swords to Ploughshares. In June 2015 he donated hundreds of game tickets to LGBT groups ahead of an Oakland Athletics Pride Night, and later that year he invited 17 Syrian refugee families to a Thanksgiving dinner in Chicago.

He’s spent this season documenting the local independent bookstores he visits in every city and his passion for all things Star Wars. Doolittle’s Twitter name is Obi-Sean Kenobi, and in his avatar, he’s wearing a Jedi robe over his Nationals uniform and holding a lightsaber. Washington even held an “Obi-Sean Kenobi” Star Wars bobblehead giveaway on June 15.

But he’s become as much a fan of sports science as he is of science fiction. The Nationals hired Harvey Sharman away from English Premier League soccer club Leeds United to be their director of medical services prior to the 2016 season. Doolittle arrived from the A’s in July 2017, and Doolittle picked up his second All-Star selection last year. He credits Sharman’s arrival and baseball’s deep embrace of data analysis for helping shape his preparation.

On Smarter Training…

“My routine has changed a lot since I came over here. Even just throughout the course of the season this year, with the workload that I’ve had, we’ve changed some stuff as well. So I feel like it’s a constant search. You’re looking for something that’s gonna keep you in a good spot. Also maybe helping you get a little stronger, get a little better, maybe throw a little harder. 

“I’m lucky these guys [on our staff] want to learn that kind of stuff as much as we do so we’re in pretty good hands. [Sharman] does a really good job of welcoming outside help into the training room and the weight room. The communication is really good between him and the other trainers and the strength coaches. I think there are some clubs that are really hesitant to let outside trainers come in. Guys have different methods that they might use during the off season, and they welcome that [here]. They want to learn about those, whatever they’re using, whether it’s some sort of machine or some sort of training program. If the player thinks it’s helping them, they want to learn about it, so that they can continue that process, which I think is really cool.”

On Sleep…

“The only [wearable] I really got into was a Whoop band. I wore one for a really long time. I lost the charger, but I have one on the way, so I’ll start wearing it again. I just thought, for us, with how crazy our schedule is, we don’t have a chance to get on a regular sleep schedule. As far as recovery goes—I’m getting a little bit up there, this is my eighth season—you’re constantly looking for little things that can help you stick around and lengthen your career. 

“I used it a lot to try to experiment with healthier sleep habits. It turns out that there is some truth to it that, if you watch a screen as you’re falling asleep and that’s the last thing you do, I don’t get into deep sleep. I stay in REM and stage one and two a lot longer. I might get eight, nine, 10 hours of sleep, but it’s not the restful sleep that I really need to recover. If you don’t slip right into it, it’s really tough for you to get enough cycles in over the course of your sleep to really get the restful recovery sleep that you need. 

“A lot of times, too, we lose about—well, I do anyway, but most people—an hour of sleep at night just from like tossing and turning. You wake up, you don’t really realize it. So when you’re budgeting for sleep and you’re setting your alarm, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I want to get nine hours of sleep.’ Well, I really should factor in an extra hour so I can really get the numbers I need. 

“There’s also a lot of research now that’s coming out that says you actually can bank sleep. The science for a long time said otherwise and said it was a night-to-night thing. That’s important for us. There are nights where six hours of sleep is the most I can get if we have a night game and then a day game the next day—that’s the most I can get. So there needs to be a night either before or after that where I maybe get 11 or 12 hours and catch up. It is pretty fascinating. I got to get back on that actually.”

“If I think about staying fluid, the way the ball comes out of my hand tends to have a higher spin rate, I get better extension because I’m looser, I’m not using my big muscles. The closer role is all about managing energy. It can be a challenge staying fluid with all that adrenaline and the atmosphere.”

On Wearable Data Insights…

“[Sometimes] I looked at the [Whoop] app and I was like, ‘Ah, I only recovered 30%. That’s why I feel like shit.’ But our strength coaches were great about it because I could be like—and I did this sometimes in spring training—[and say], ‘Hey, look, I got shitty sleep last night. I only recovered 20%. Can we bump that lift to tomorrow or can we do something else instead?’ They were great about it. One of the strength coaches was wearing one for a really long time as well.

“Just occasionally [I’d share data]. They were great about helping us. They helped us get the band, but that was it. Then it was like, you could show them things if you wanted to. Our mental skills coach is really good with sleep hygiene and stuff like getting a better routine before you go to bed so you can get more out of your sleep.”

On Statcast Analytics…

“The most advanced I get is some spin rate stuff, extension and release point. [After a good outing], I tell the coach, ‘Hey, I think that was a good one, bookmark that, and let me know how it looks.’ For me, it’s been good to quantify when I felt good. I don’t want to get super-specific like, ‘Your spin rate was 100 rpms lower than it usually is.’ The way my brain works, I’ll get trapped in that over-analyzing thing.

“When I throw 90% fastballs, it’s a really specific thing, and I want to make sure that what I’m feeling on the mound is matching up with the data. If I think about staying fluid, the way the ball comes out of my hand tends to have a higher spin rate, I get better extension because I’m looser, I’m not using my big muscles. It’ll look to them like it’s rising. It’s not, but that would be awesome. I’ve found that being back in the closer role is all about managing that energy because I’ve found it can be a challenge staying fluid with all that adrenaline and the atmosphere that’s going on.

“For me, as a reliever, I’m going to use data different than a starter is going to use data. Unless there’s something glaring, we’re going to pitch to our strengths. I couldn’t tell you the percentage of swings this guy takes on fastballs out of the zone. Somewhere, somebody knows that data, and they’ve sifted through it and boiled it down to the point where they can be like, ‘This guy’s super-aggressive with guys in scoring position.’ I need the bullet point that I can have in the back of my head. I kind of assume everybody swings at every pitch I throw anyway because they have a pretty good idea that I’m throwing a fastball, which I can use to my advantage, I feel like I can exploit that aggressiveness.”

On Warming Up With Weighted Balls…

“I don’t do it every day, and I’m not like Driveline or anything like that. Just every once in awhile, we work it into part of my warmup and maintenance routine. I don’t do any of the turn-ins or anything like that—just some days I’ll do bands, some days I’ll use heavy balls, some days we’ll do like range of motion stuff. It’s all part of a larger program. 

“I’ve had some that are like really, really heavy, but I was throwing one today—it was 14 ounces. We have some in the bullpen, and I’ll do arm circles with them or throw them against a cinder-block wall if I can find one down there. A lot of times we have to get ready really quickly. So if my first few throws can be productive rather than to get loose, I can get ready a little bit more efficiently.”

On Bullpen Cars…

“I’ve only really ridden in ours and Arizona’s. I don’t know if there is another one. Detroit had one, I don’t know what happened, but when we were there they didn’t have it. That was sick [when the Nationals] got a BB-8 one for Star Wars Day. They had an Expos hat on it for Turn- Back-the-Clock Day because we wore ’69 Expos uniforms. The Arizona one is probably faster. Ours is probably a smoother ride, though. The Arizona one throws you back in your seat. At one point, I ended up shoulder-to-shoulder with the driver because he took one of the turns so hard. Ours is a lot smoother with softer turns. Maybe I need a seat belt or something.”

(Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)

New Athletes Voice stories appear earlier in our newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.

Read more in our ongoing Athletes Voice series…

Question? Comment? Story idea? Let us know at talkback@sporttechie.com

← Back to SportTechie