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Atlanta Braves Sean Newcomb: talented but inconsistent

By Fred Owens

NEW YORK, NY - JULY 03: Sean Newcomb #15 of the Atlanta Braves pitches in the first inning against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium on July 3, 2018 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - JULY 03: Sean Newcomb #15 of the Atlanta Braves pitches in the first inning against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium on July 3, 2018 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images) /
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The Atlanta Braves recently extended catcher Tyler Flowers. His framing capability is among the best in the league but fast base runners steal on his arm. (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)
The Atlanta Braves recently extended catcher Tyler Flowers. His framing capability is among the best in the league but fast base runners steal on his arm. (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images) /

More detail similar results

This season Flowers caught 11 of Newcomb’s games, Suzuki caught 15 and Stewart caught one. Thanks to Baseball-Reference data and Excel, I came up with a more granular breakout – ignoring Stewart’s game.

Overall Newcomb’s ERA is two runs better when Suzuki catches.

  G IP ERA Total
Flowers 11 60 5.10
Suzuki 15 83 2/3 3.01

A look at the number of days of rest between starts revealed that both catchers caught Newcomb four times on four days or rest both ERAs rose. However, Newcomb still pitched significantly better with Suzuki than Flowers.

   G IP ERA 4DR
Flowers 4 21.67 7.92
Suzuki 4 21.67 3.32

That trend continued when Newcomb had five days rest. The margin shrank but Newcomb still produced a better ERA with Suzuki.

  G IP ERA 5DR
Flowers 7 38 1/3 3.52
Suzuki 7 44 2.05

Suzuki also caught Newcomb three times on more than five days rest; twice with eight days and once with six. Newcomb’s ERA rose and I put that down to being off for too long.

  G IP  
  More than 5 days rest ERA > 5DR
Suzuki 3 15 3.00

So it is clear that Suzuki gets the best results with Newcomb. But why?

What’s the difference?

I looked at every statistical factor I could think of and found small differences that I feel led to the ERA differential.

There’s no apparent difference in the quality of opposition Newcomb faced that would skew the numbers significantly. Both catchers time caught the same number of games against teams playing above 500-ball. In inter-league play, Flowers caught the Yankee game, Suzuki the Red Sox game.

It became clear as I looked at pitch selection, that the two catchers have a different view of how to use Newcomb’s pitches. Both catchers use a first-pitch fastball over 60% of the time; Suzuki uses it more often while Flowers mixes in a breaking pitch about 28% of the time.

First Pitch FF CH CU SL
Flowers 61.4% 10.9% 25.7% 2.0%
Suzuki 70.4% 11.7% 16.7% 1.2%

Newcomb gets more first-pitch strikes and called strikes with Flowers catching, probably due to his framing ability. However, he gets more strikeouts when Suzuki’s catching no matter how I sliced the data.

FPS%  S % SS% SL% K/IP K/BF K/9
Flowers 0.61 63.5% 14.9% 28.2% 0.87 0.20 7.80
Suzuki 0.52 59.8% 16.2% 26.6% 0.99 0.24 8.89

Newcomb throws more pitches per batter and walks more batters yet pitches deeper into games with Suzuki catching. All of those things should negatively impact his performance yet somehow, he also faces fewer batters and gives up fewer hits and runs per nine.

IP/GS P/BF BF/IP BB/9 H/9
Flowers 5.45 4.06 4.33 3.90 8.7
Suzuki 5.79 4.29 4.09 4.33 6.7

The indicators that come closest to explaining the differences between catchers involve the how balls are put in play.

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