Free agent left-hander Sean Newcomb has gotten attention from teams both as a starter and reliever, write Will Sammon, Katie Woo and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The 32-year-old began the season in the Red Sox’s rotation but moved to relief after five starts.
Newcomb is coming off his best season in at least six years. A former first-round pick who held a rotation spot with the Braves between 2017-18, Newcomb moved primarily to the bullpen in 2019. He pitched well that year but struggled with both injuries and a lack of command over the next few seasons. He combined for 98 2/3 MLB innings between 2020-24 and took a minor league contract with Boston last winter.
The Massachusetts native surprisingly nabbed the fifth starter spot out of camp. He only once completed five innings and allowed four-plus runs in three out of five outings. The Sox moved him to a long relief role when Lucas Giolito returned from a hamstring injury in late April. Newcomb was solid out of the bullpen but was nevertheless pushed off the roster. The Sox traded him to the Athletics, for whom he’d logged some time as a depth reliever in 2023-24.
Newcomb turned into an unexpectedly important bullpen piece for Mark Kotsay. He fired 51 1/3 frames of 1.75 ERA ball while working 1-2 innings at a time. Newcomb punched out a quarter of opponents against a career-best 7% walk rate. He worked in the 93-94 MPH range with both his four-seam fastball and sinker while using a low-80s curveball as his best secondary pitch. Newcomb dabbled with a cutter and changeup against right-handed batters, but the fastball/curve combination was where he found most of his success.
The 6’5″ southpaw pitched particularly well down the stretch, turning in a 0.96 ERA over 28 innings after the All-Star Break. His season ended a couple weeks early because of elbow inflammation, but there’s no indication that’ll be an issue going into next season. Durability has generally been a concern, albeit mostly with lower half injuries. Newcomb missed time with a sprained ankle in 2022 and battled knee problems over the following two seasons.
Newcomb’s strong year was enough to land a big league contract this time around. A one-year deal seems likely, though it’s not out of the question he commands a modest two-year guarantee. Sixth starters and swing types like Griffin Canning, Joe Ross, Jakob Junis, Colin Rea and Michael Lorenzen landed contracts between $4-7MM last winter. Newcomb’s former teammate Michael Soroka pulled a $9MM deal from the Nationals at the higher end of that range, though he’s five years younger and had shown more strikeout potential in the bullpen.
I’ve been rooting for Newk since he came up. His issue always seemed to be a huge curve that wasn’t nearly sharp enough to fool hitters and led to lots of homers .
Unc still has a bit left in the tank.
Truly hoping he can have a good 26!
Come back to the Angels. We need pitching.
First thing Billy Eppler did when he got hired by the angels was get rid of him for Andrelton Simmons. One of the only good things he ever did for the organization.
Simmons was a Braves trade for Sean.
I wonder what his numbers were before and after the near no hitter against the Dodgers. Feels like he wasn’t the same after that.
Some old texts came out that put him in a bad light right after that almost no hitter, he never really came back after that for the Braves
Happy to see him experience success. That said, if you have to consider this guy as a traditional starter, you are really scraping the bottom of the barrel. He just does not & has never had a good feel for pitching. That kind of thing plays up in the bullpen.
I agree until this past season. His command was significantly better down the stretch, which is why he put up the numbers he did and probably why he has some interest as a starter
He can get work as a Longman/6th starter going 3-4 innings. A team like Tampa could get quality out of him
Totally agree. I think he could be good one time through the order, or to spell a young starter if they need to be pulled early.
I hope for his sake he proves me wrong but I would bet heavily against him ever being an acceptable 5+ inning starter.
Tampa is a bunch of miracle workers. They could probably get value out of Frankie Montas.
Let’s not get crazy
The reliever to starter gimmick is so tiring and unnecessary. Just pay the starting pitcher instead of assuming massive risk for the same outcome. Newcomb and helsley FAILED as starters so why make the same mistake minor league teams did forever ago with these guys. The best recent example, Clay Holmes, was a 5 and dive pitcher with a whip problem. The risk and savings are not worth the reward
The last two pitchers to finish 2nd in AL Cy Young voting, Crochett and Lugo, both converted to SP a couple years back. There’s been some times the reward has been big
Crochet was never really a reliever. He was a starter at Tennessee and only put in the pen to help w the 2020 playoff series and then returned as a reliever after TJ. Always anticipated hed be a front line starter. Similar development path to Sale
Because the most valuable thing in baseball is a quality starting pitcher for a discount price. If you’re a small market team you might have to get creative to find that in free agency. Garrett crochet, Seth Lugo, Michael king, Chris sale have all done it successfully and have shown it’s possible to get that from former relievers. So if you want a quality starter at reliever prices and can’t or don’t want to pay marker rate for starting pitching it’s not a bad option
Most of the guys got a small window of opportunity to start and then established themselves in the pen fairly quickly. While their stuff probably played up in the pen it’s also possible they learned how to pitch by being given an inning here and there instead of having to learn to pitch in the majors while having the responsibility of being a SP, sitting on their bad outings for a week at a time, etc. It’s easier to build confidence when it’s just one inning (maybe even in a blowout) and it also simplifies things. I did see R. Lopez pitch a lot for ATL and in that case I thought the potential problem is he seemed to attack every hitter like he was a RP and that just isn’t practical if you are planning on staying healthy for a full season.
As a Brave, it seemed like he became his own worst enemy. Would get ahead of hitters and then not put them away. And if he started to struggle, the situation would spiral downward.
I hope he has figured things out and becomes more than a journeyman.
If you think Newcomb was good at any point of his regular season Red Sox tenure, then you didn’t watch or listen to him pitch.
I think with guys like this who are inconsistent, if they seem to excel out of the bullpen, just keep them there. Take what you can get. He seems pretty filthy as a 1-2 inning arm and that has a lot of value. I don’t see the value in a fringe starter who’s gonna give you 4-5 innings and tax the pen.
Would love to see AA bring him back to atlanta.
Guarantee Preller was one of those calls..
Back to Sacramento, if it ain’t broken don’t fix it
He Already failed this experiment in atl. Never panned out. Bullpen for life till he retires which will be soon 👍
Good for him. Hopefully he’ll get that generational changing contract. And that kind of money doesn’t have to be much. Even a small contract in baseball terms is life changing for most people. Hope he’s get himself a 10 mil contract. If the Braves were to bring him back, I’d say 1 year 6.5 mil or 2 years 10 mil max. That’s money that can impact the family for life