Minor league signee Sean Newcomb is likely to begin the season as the Red Sox’s fifth starter, manager Alex Cora tells reporters (including Alex Speier of The Boston Globe). The Sox would need to add the southpaw to their 40-man roster if he breaks camp.
Newcomb hasn’t held a consistent rotation role for seven years. He started 30 games for the Braves in 2018. The former first-round pick hasn’t reached five starts in an MLB season since then. Newcomb looked like a potential mid-rotation arm early in his career. Scattershot command pushed him to the bullpen and eventually into journeyman territory. Newcomb has allowed a 6.66 earned run average in 98 2/3 frames divided between three teams since the start of 2020.
The 31-year-old has made seven MLB appearances for the A’s in each of the last two seasons. He worked 10 innings last year and walked eight batters while recording seven strikeouts. He gave up seven runs. Newcomb had opened the year on the 60-day injured list with left knee soreness and was released in July, so he barely pitched. The Massachusetts native signed a minor league deal with the Red Sox in January.
Newcomb has had a fantastic Spring Training. He has worked 14 1/3 innings of two-run ball, striking out 13 against three walks. He nevertheless would not have secured a season-opening rotation spot if not for a few injuries. Brayan Bello, Lucas Giolito and Kutter Crawford are all beginning the year on the injured list.
Giolito and Bello should be back by the middle of April, so Newcomb’s stint in the rotation might be brief. He’ll land behind Garrett Crochet, Tanner Houck, Walker Buehler and Richard Fitts to begin the year. If he pitches well, Newcomb could kick into the bullpen. As a player with over five years of service time, he could refuse any minor league assignments once he officially cracks the 40-man roster.
Boston will also need to open a roster spot for top prospect Kristian Campbell, who’ll break camp and should play regularly at second base. Zach Penrod and Chris Murphy are candidates to move to the 60-day IL if the Sox don’t want to designate anyone for assignment.
Doh!
How insightful.
While the team isn’t opening the season with its best arms, it *is* starting with some pretty good ones. And reinforcements will be returning, which make for fairly deep, but also somewhat fragile, depth for throughout the season.
I really like Murphy and hope he responds well from surgery. This guy deserves a shot based on his spring but I’m thinking he’s trade bait if he looks good when others are ready. Won’t get much due to small sample size but could still get something back then in the event the bullpen is fine.
“Scattershot”
Someone’s been reading the dictionary.
We will always remember when Newcomb was 1 out away from no-hitting the Dodgers.
Yep and I always remember him sweating absolute bullets against the Yankees. He was pouring, never seen someone sweat like that on the mound.
too young to remember lh rp Dennys Reyes? guy nickname was literally the big sweat. he had a great story. once approached famous scout brito( Panama hat, signed Fernando Valenzuela) at 12 saying he was a good pitcher and Brito should sign him! Brito told the young right handed kid that he only signed lefties. so Dennys went home, taught himself to throw left handed and had 10 years in the show as a lh rp. yeah, nobody sweated more than the big sweat though
That’s awesome, I remember watching him too.. The teaching himself to throw lefty seemed vaguely familiar but it’s solid now.. Thanks for that
I have a good friend that grew up worshipping Bobby Richardson so much that he learned to throw righty just so he could play 2nd.
The rotation is already held together by bubble gum and duct tape. Love it.
I hope Nuke can figure it out for good. Might be his last chance to be a starter that he seems to want so much.
Picked him up in a 30-team points league last week after our draft had ended. Hoping his ST performance gets me some unexpected help in the early part of the season. Best case scenario – he pitches Boston into a six man rotation situation with oft-injured Giolito and Buehler.
Unsure why they’re running with this over Priester out the gate.
He was invited to camp with basically no cost or expectations.
He pitched lights out like vintage performances of old at his peak.
That’s why you run with this over priester – if you’ve got lightning in a bottle you ride it while you can. If there’s a period of lights out towards the front of the rotation quality pitching, you take that any day of the week – especially while other potent starters aren’t ready.
Well said… lightning in a bottle. Even better, glad he’s doing this in front of his hometown team. What a great story. Growing up a huge sports fan, you imagine how many kids with similar dreams truly get to play for their hometown team or their team they associated with as a child?
I wanted to play football for Notre Dame as a Catholic kid growing up in Northern Virginia. Notre Dame wasn’t an even an option directly out of high school, so I went into the military, USF gave me an opportunity after that six year period poking holes in the ocean on a submarine. Not the green and gold I was initially hoping to wear… but definitely the green and gold that has my unwavering support after getting an opportunity to play as a 25-year old walk-on wide receiver. Hoping Newcomb shines for his team (which also helps my fantasy baseball team).
Newcomb had a much better spring than Priester. He had a much lower ERA, WHIP and walk rate.
Suit, don’t forget an attractive K:W ratio, completely unexpected for Sean after his command issues for a several year stretch.
I’m curious to see how he fares vs mlb regulars, since some of these numbers are inflated by the quality of players he faced. I don’t expect Cy quality numbers, but, I’m hopeful of something respectable that buys the injured guys extra time to work their way back without any urgency
I never put much stock in spring training stats. Small samples + the competition isn’t as fierce (both weaker players & the focus is on building up individual players, not on winning games). Hopefully I’m wrong but a soft-tossing lefty like him seems likely to get lit up in actual games, but perhaps Red Sox analytics see underlying stuff that they like that I haven’t seen. Maybe the plan is to shift him to a bullpen LHP role when some other starters come back, but I would’ve preferred to have both Fitts and Priester in the rotation to start so they could both get a good early look.
Meow. He’s a fifth starter. Imagine going from him to Crochet the following day? Won’t be easy on the hitters.
Ah — looking for the “Wakefield effect””
Dewey: I’m curious, has there been any statistical research into that sort of SP sequencing? Is there a noticeable impact between facing a tricky pitcher one day and a power pitcher the next, vs two of the same type in a row? It makes sense that the former would give the pitcher a small advantage, but I feel like it’s not talked about much. Would love to see quantification of more multi-game stuff like that in general.
Meow, I don’t know about studies but it makes sense.
Priester has been really shaky.
Priester… I don’t even know Her.
I think lower expectations are in order here. Let’s ask for what every team should want out of their fifth starter, pitch into the 6th, having only given up 3 runs or less, and hand the ball off. If the Sox get that they’re in good shape and he will have done his job.
The last time Newcomb was a starter was 2018.in 2018 he put up 68IP. Since then, he maxed out at 32IP. He pitched 10 and 15 IP the last two seasons. I don’t have faith in him pitching into the 6th and limiting damage.
Hopefully, they only need him for 3-4 starts.
If Giolito and/or Bello are back in mid-April, thus guy is only going to get two or maybe three starts.
ERA of the Beast. HAIL NEWCOMB
Sean Newcomb is a case study in MLB’s failure to develop control over pure velocity. Until teams shift development strategies to prioritize strike-throwing earlier in a pitcher’s career, we’ll keep seeing guys like him flame out, only to resurface for brief moments before disappearing again.
The Red Sox apparently are spending again because the rookies are ready or is it because fan backlash would have been huge once it came out that they were the most profitable team in baseball last year:
overthemonster.com/2025/3/26/24394473/red-sox-news…
Dewey, personally I think it’s a bit more complicated, and there was a blend of reasons.
I don’t think the purse strings were fully open early, and thus, why it was a overpaid trade for crochet rather than a FA SP.
I *do* think the spending increased for some reason related to FSG pursuing the Cs from Grousbeck. Either they were told they were out of the running, in part due to the austerity with the ballclub these past years. So either they wanted to spend more to claim no, thats not true, in a bid to salvage chances some *or* because they knew there was a pile of money they wouldn’t use to acquire the Cs. Take your pick.
But something changed that made the club all of a sudden throw a big wad of cash out that they wouldn’t all offseason – either on SP or even just to Bregman himself. We won’t know what, we can only guess.
But, the powers that be knew what revenues were like well ahead of any report or valuation news. Back in November they newnwhat receipts were like over the year. So if that was the only reason, I think they would’ve made stronger bids in early FA
IMO, it was a rest (rebuild). We could’ve (should’ve) spent more, but without players comin thru the pipeline, a little more spending wouldn’t have made a difference.