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Red Sox Designate Sean Newcomb For Assignment

By Nick Deeds | May 24, 2025 at 5:17pm CDT

The Red Sox announced this afternoon that they’ve designated left-hander Sean Newcomb for assignment. The move makes room on the active roster for right-hander Luis Guerrero to be recalled from Triple-A.

Newcomb, 32 next month, is a former first-round pick who was selected 15th overall by the Angels back in 2014. He was swapped to Atlanta in the Andrelton Simmons trade prior to his MLB debut and spent parts of six seasons with the Braves from 2017 to 2022. During that time, he pitched to a league average 4.25 ERA in 144 appearances (57 starts) with a near-matching 4.27 FIP. That overall number doesn’t tell the full story, however, as Newcomb was actually an above-average pitcher (110 ERA+) over his first three years in the majors. Things took a turn for the worse after that, however, and by the end of the 2022 season he had been cut by the Braves and had a 7.45 ERA with a 5.57 FIP over his 73 2/3 innings of work in the majors from 2020 to 2022. He spent the following two seasons in Oakland with a roughly average 4.32 ERA despite shoddy peripherals that were more or less in line with his numbers during his previous struggles.

Newcomb’s future was filled with uncertainty entering Spring Training this winter. He had signed a minor league deal with the Red Sox over the winter, but the club had a loaded pitching staff and Newcomb hadn’t exactly shown much at the big league level in recent years. Fortunately for the soon to be 32-year-old, the Red Sox suffered a number of injuries throughout the spring. That, in conjunction with an impressive Spring Training, was enough to get Newcomb an opportunity to break camp not just with Boston, but as a member of the starting rotation while players like Lucas Giolito, Kutter Crawford, and Brayan Bello began the season on the IL.

Newcomb’s five starts with Boston over the season’s first month were something of a mixed bag. The southpaw completed the fifth inning just once in those outings and surrendered a 4.43 ERA overall, but his peripherals looked quite strong as he struck out 25.7% of his opponents while walking 10.5%. He got bumped from the club’s rotation as other pitchers started to get healthy, but remained on the roster as a long relief option and excelled in that role as well, with a 3.06 ERA and 3.81 FIP in 17 2/3 innings of work across six relief outings.

In all, the lefty finishes his time with the Red Sox with a 3.83 ERA and 3.28 FIP across 40 innings of work. It’s a solid track record, and it would hardly be a surprise to see a pitching-needy club scoop the southpaw up either via trade or the waiver wire in the coming days given his previous pedigree and more recent success in the majors this year. The Red Sox will have one week to either trade Newcomb or attempt to pass him through waivers. Should he clear waivers, they could attempt to outright him to the minors as non-roster depth but he would have the opportunity to reject that assignment.

As for Guerrero, the right-hander has yet to give up an earned run in 14 innings of work at the major league level across the past two seasons. He’s rode the shuttle between Triple-A and the majors frequently for the Red Sox in recent years due to the fact that he has options remaining, but has yet to get an extended audition at the big league level. It’s possible his opportunity is now, although it must be noted that the Red Sox have a number of hurlers on the injured list whose activation will eventually require someone to be sent down to the minors or otherwise removed from the roster.

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Boston Red Sox Transactions Luis Guerrero Sean Newcomb

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55 Comments

  1. MeowMeow

    4 months ago

    Thank you for your service, Mr. Newcomb. So many relief innings lately.

    6
    Reply
    • Gwynning

      4 months ago

      Ouch, inbetween a DoubleHeader? He did look particularly bad in Game 1 though. Nice green jerseys Boston!

      4
      Reply
    • So many crybaby Mets fans

      4 months ago

      I was thinking exactly the same thing. Even if i didn’t think he was great, he pitched in where needed (pun intended)

      2
      Reply
  2. DonOsbourne

    4 months ago

    He looked like he was throwing the ball pretty well the couple of times I saw him pitch. I was surprised the Red Sox started the year with him in their rotation. I thought he was done a couple years ago. But held his own. I hope he can stay healthy enough to build on his start to the season.

    1
    Reply
    • 4WSsince04

      4 months ago

      Don – The Red Sox would not have had Sean Newcomb in the rotation except for the fact that Giolito, Crawford, Fitts, Bello, Houck, and Buehler have all spent various amounts of time on the DL.

      They currently have a rotation of Crochet, Buehler, Giolito, Dobbins, and Bello, so as you can see Newcomb would have soon been forced off the roster anyway.

      1
      Reply
  3. Mercenary.Freddie.Freeman

    4 months ago

    He will be picked up by a team. Lefty’s pitch in MLB forever even if they are not very good.

    4
    Reply
  4. mlb1225

    4 months ago

    Honestly doesn’t look like he was doing all that bad. Sub-4.00 ERA and FIP while having a BABIP of .421, which is guarenteed to go down? Is there something I’m missing here, Red Sox fans?

    3
    Reply
    • HBan22

      4 months ago

      Look at his WHIP. Quite bad.

      3
      Reply
      • mlb1225

        4 months ago

        Yeah, but that’s because of his BABIP being so high. Only one player in baseball history has maintained that high of a BABIP in at least 50 IP, and that was back in 1936. His walk rate and strikeout rate are okay.

        3
        Reply
    • Gwynning

      4 months ago

      The way he looked today, I’ll take the over on the .421 figure going up.

      3
      Reply
    • Joemo

      4 months ago

      He wasn’t doing too bad.

      He’s the long relief option.

      I wonder if there’s a roster crunch coming with the SP and they want to keep someone like dobbins/Fitts in long relief.

      So like if Houck/Fitts are getting ready to come for the IL, they need to get creative.

      Reply
    • MeowMeow

      4 months ago

      I think it’s more a consequence of them needing to shuffle around some arms, given how the bullpen has been taxed lately. Newcomb has always been a bit of a 26th man since some of the injured starters got back, and he’s been used a LOT for a reliever the last couple weeks. His numbers so far this season have been pretty good, but he’s wildly outperforming his career averages in K/9 and BB/9. Apparently the Red Sox don’t believe that to be a sustainable improvement.

      5
      Reply
      • cdr9er1980sox

        4 months ago

        One person in here has a brain

        Reply
  5. Jarred Kelenic's Beer Can

    4 months ago

    Seems like a future Mariner. They need someone effective at eating innings.

    1
    Reply
  6. Rsox

    4 months ago

    Hopefully they can sneak him through waivers and maybe convince him to go to Worcester. The Sox bullpen is gassed, the starters can’t seem to more than 5 (or even 5 at all for that matter). Giolito goes 7 scoreless but having to leave Guerrero in because everyone else was unavailable cost them the game tonight

    2
    Reply
    • freddiemeetgibby

      4 months ago

      It’s not 1996, starting pitchers don’t go more than 5-6 innings anymore

      Reply
      • Fever Pitch Guy

        4 months ago

        Fred – The good ones do.

        1
        Reply
        • freddiemeetgibby

          4 months ago

          lol, and then go on the IL the next week

          Reply
        • Fever Pitch Guy

          4 months ago

          Fred – There were 32 pitchers last year with 175-209 innings…. can’t pitch that much without going 6-7 innings several times, the math doesn’t work.

          2
          Reply
        • Poolhalljunkies

          4 months ago

          Fpg. 32? Thats an intersting stat and opinion on it..so based on that math are you saying in the current era every team has one “good one” on average? What is the hypothetical solution to that problem? Is it a problem?

          1
          Reply
        • freddiemeetgibby

          4 months ago

          How many of the 32 have spent time on the IL last year or this? Do you have that stat for me? That would more prove the point.

          Reply
        • Fever Pitch Guy

          4 months ago

          fred – That would require looking up each pitcher individually.

          Obviously they wouldn’t have pitched that many innings last year if they had been on the IL. And why would this year matter?

          Look I obviously agree pitchers don’t go 7-9 innings as often as they did years ago, it’s just not as bad as you claim.

          1
          Reply
        • freddiemeetgibby

          4 months ago

          Ok I did it for you. The answer is 25% and this year matters because overuse one year can follow into the next.

          Reply
        • freddiemeetgibby

          4 months ago

          lol, my math sucks, there are 7 out of 32 so it’s about 21%

          1
          Reply
        • freddiemeetgibby

          4 months ago

          What, no response to my we’ll research answer? Oh and look… Burnes and his 194.1 innings last year now have him on the IL this year. Overuse one year follows into the following year.

          Reply
        • Fever Pitch Guy

          4 months ago

          fred – Sorry I didn’t see your post earlier, I often get more than 10 unread notifications which means they drop off without me seeing them. But I gave it a thumb just now ;O)

          Overuse doesn’t usually cause TJS, it just speeds it up. As with anything wear-and-tear related, it’s gonna happen eventually. If you drive a brand new car only 5K miles a year, the engine will still die around X miles regardless of how fast you get there.

          The much bigger factor in TJS is constant max velo and pushing for higher spin rate, which he did last year because it was a contract year.

          If innings was the reason, he would have needed surgery in 2023 and 2024 because he pitched 194 innings in 2023 and 202 innings in 2022.

          2
          Reply
        • freddiemeetgibby

          4 months ago

          A human is not a car. Bad example. If a cars brakes wear down, do they self recover? Does a car have any healing properties?
          And if he had less innings the last few years, would he be healthy now? Maybe…
          you are so quick to dismiss inning but so quick to blame spin rate/velo. All I am saying is now with more spin and velo, maybe limiting innings is a way to help. More than 1 out of 5 pitchers that pitched over 175 inning was injured this year. Was more than 1 out of 5 pitchers that spin the ball fast injured this year? Probably not.

          Reply
  7. soxfan1

    4 months ago

    No way he goes unclaimed

    1
    Reply
  8. Yankees are Your Daddies

    4 months ago

    Mets incoming

    1
    Reply
  9. orange2001

    4 months ago

    I could see the Angels picking up Newcomb considering how awful their bullpen has been. Plus would be a nice full circle for Newcomb.

    1
    Reply
    • freddiemeetgibby

      4 months ago

      Shouldn’t the Angels pick up someone good so they can be a better team and not still bad like they’ve been for years

      1
      Reply
  10. Seaver rules

    4 months ago

    Meet the Mets. Greet the Mets. A left handed reliever is certainly needed in Queens and with the ability to be a long man or spot starter it is a very good fit.

    1
    Reply
  11. Nobby

    4 months ago

    Cora is running this staff into the ground. Pulling these pitchers out in the fifth inning or before is going to kill any chance this team has of being successful. How is a young pitcher like Dobbins going to learn and grow if he’s not given the chance to pitch out of trouble? It’s painful to watch it game after game.

    1
    Reply
  12. Fever Pitch Guy

    4 months ago

    Nob – Cora is addicted to pitching changes, he wants to prove he’s the smartest man in the room by overmanaging.

    1
    Reply
    • cdr9er1980sox

      4 months ago

      In regards to Walker, it makes sense. Pulling Crochet? Asinine and then saying it was planned, yet not communicated to Garret? When I played, at each level, HS, College, Pro, the pitcher knew their limit. I have ties to Cora through personal relationships, but I’m starting to really question whether he’s managing by his beliefs, or if John Henry has him following a playbook. Alex in reality is a brilliant baseball mind, but I believe he’s not fully in control.

      1
      Reply
      • all in the suit that you wear

        4 months ago

        Agreed. Analytics is probably guiding everything. I’m guessing they have a plan for pitchers they will use in each game and a season plan for each pitcher. That’s why I don’t completely blame Cora for pitching decisions. I think there is a whole staff of people involved, preplanning things. Preplanned moves can look like they don’t make sense in the moment.

        Reply
      • Fever Pitch Guy

        4 months ago

        cdr – Walker’s prior start was only 54 pitches because of the ejection, he should have pitched longer yesterday.

        Agree with you on Crochet, if it’s true it was planned a week in advance then he should have been told. Otherwise Crochet not knowing, he could have been holding back, saving something in the tank to go 7 innings because of the bullpen situation.

        I agree some teams have the front office dictating game decisions, but that’s not the case with Cora. He has a lot of clout because of his relationship with John Henry, his large contract reflects that, and as you probably know he has front office aspirations while Breslow has been a CBO all of 18 months. It’s really odd dynamics in the Red Sox organization.

        Cora is managing just like he always has, being ultra-passive and overdoing the resting of players in the first half of the season. Remember 2019? That was the first time he admitted having players “fresh for September and October” is more important than winning games in April and May. And he was right …. his players were well-rested, as they sat home and watched the postseason on TV.

        Until Cora realizes that wins during the first half of the season are just as important and count just as much as wins in August and September, nothing will change.

        As for “brilliant baseball mind”, I’d enjoy hearing some examples of that. Sure he has knowledge from his long career in baseball and his brother & Dad, but intelligence is not the same as knowledge.

        1
        Reply
        • cdr9er1980sox

          4 months ago

          He’s not a genius other than baseball, but he does know baseball as well as anyone. I think you’d be surprised how much is still dictated to him.

          1
          Reply
  13. letitbelowenstein

    4 months ago

    Newcomb was hardly the worst pitcher on that staff. Not good, of course, but I could have fingered someone else to be kicked downstairs.

    1
    Reply
  14. thecrocusesareinbloom

    4 months ago

    Newcomb was ill-suited to rotation work and is never going to live up to his long-forgotten top prospect billing but has been quietly rather excellent in his long relief role. I’m sure he’s gassed from having thrown so many pitches lately but I would have rather have sent Kelly back down than given up on Newcomb.

    1
    Reply

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