Sean Doolittle - the elite reliever gets his elite closing gig

Here's some stats for you

A 2.92 ERA,  2.46 FIP,  0.912 WHIP,  0.8 HR/9,  6.5 H/9,  1.7 BB/9,  10.7 K/9.

That's Sean Doolittle's career.  It's good right? It's very good in fact. Maybe even scraping great. It's not elite no but wait...

A 2.88 ERA,  0.896 WHIP,  0.8 HR/9,  1.7 BB/9,  10.8 K/9

A little better, right? This is what happens when you remove the year Doolittle was injured. It was only 13.2 IP but it was clearly his worst year.

Ok can we do even better. Normally I like to look at the last three years before the current one when judging a player before the year starts. But injuries can screw that up, especially if you think the player is now over whatever plagued them. In Doolittle's case because the year after his injury wasn't a full year but a 2/3rds injury recovery year I'm tempted to remove that. So let's not include that. I think that's pretty fair.  But that only leaves us with one year before this current one as the injury years were years 2 and 3 previous. Given his relatively young age, and the fact it wasn't a rookie year I think it's ok to grab that year 4 years ago. So in essence we're looking at his last 2 full years before 2018 and throwing in what he's done so far.  What do we see then?

A 2.56 ERA,  0.748 WHIP,  0.8 HR/9,  1.4 BB/9,  12.1 K/9

Guys we're getting pretty close to elite here. Given that it's 2 years let's look at say... Kenely Jansen's past two years

A 1.58 ERA,  0.708 WHIP,  0.6 HR/9,  1.2 BB/9,  14.0 K/9

It's not quite at this level. Even if you ignore the ERA which can be an iffy the FIP would likely be something like 2.15 for Doolittle and 1.40 for Jansen. So Doolittle isn't prime Jansen, but prime Jansen was probably the best closer in baseball the past five years. A dominant force, really. How would these numbers over the past two seasons compare to a...

Greg Holland? Doolittle is better.
Roberto Osuna? Doolittle is equal*
Craig Kimbrel? Doolittle is equal**
Wade Davis? Doolittle is better.
Alex Colome? Doolittle is better.

Chapman? Iglesias? Allen?  Better. Better. Better.

Now I'm sure you could dig in a little more and quibble about the exact positioning. But that misses the point.  Doolittle is not peak Kenley Jansen or peak Andrew Miller but these guys are singular talents, the Mike Trouts of the relief world.  After them is there anyone better than Doolittle? Stats wise it doesn't seem so.

So why doesn't Doolittle get praise? Even when we look at that very top stat line he was still very good and that was including his injury years.  Well, because he never really got to close. He was a set-up man his first two seasons behind the very competent Grant Balfour. In 2014 it took a month and half for him to be named closer as the A's were planning on relying on Jim Johnson who crashed and burned.  He'd also miss 3 weeks late in the year leaving him with only 22 saves. He'd be injured early into 2015 and when he came back in 2016 Ryan Madson has established himself in the closer role. In 2017 Santiago Casilla was brought in AND the A's wanted to use Blake Treinen*** in that role so Doolittle would only get a chance here and there. In the end that meant despite being a top relief guy since 2012 Doolittle only amassed 36 saves in 5 1/2 seasons. That's not going to get noticed.

But with Jansen struggling, Doolittle is as good a closer as anyone in baseball currently. He's the guy the Nats have been looking for years****  Now will that hold into the playoffs? That I can't tell you. But what I will tell you is I don't see the Nats trading for anyone better to close out games this year. Doolittle is the guy.


UPDATE 
I forgot to add the homestand goals. The minimum would be split v Yankees, and winning both the Padres and Dodgers series. But winning or sweeping?  The Dodgers and Padres are both playing awful so sweeps are certainly in play and you should sweep some bad teams at home (because you'll probably lose some series to bad teams away). But it's hard to go out and say they should sweep BOTH so I'll say sweep one, win one.  That'll put the homestand at 1-1 plus 5-1 combined or a 6-2 homestand overall and likely a game or two in the standings.  5-3 is acceptable. 4-4 is not.


*Forced to choose I'd say Osuna would have edge bc youth and bc most recent year he did pitch much better, but now he's injured  currently not playing because he's a bad person and Doolittle's not so that's moot. 

**Kimbrel strikes out a ton more but is prone to problems. Walks in 2016. HRs so far this year

*** 0.93 ERA currently! No he's not that good but he can close.  Problem was something in his head. Don't discount the Nationals tendency to always be looking for the next closing arm. 

****Now I'd argue that despite what you'd think the Nats closer situation has been EXCELLENT over this whole time period. These names of guys you hate - they were all good to really good. Storen's 2015? Fantastic. Melancon's time before and with Nats? Depressing for both runs and other teams. But failures in the playoffs, even if fluky and singular, aren't overlooked by fans.