The Atlanta Braves’ Sean Newcomb and His New Role

A Longterm Role?

There’s no possible way to be certain about Sean Newcomb’s future with the Braves. Too many things can happen in just one season, not to mention several years from now.

As for right now, Newcomb’s pitch usage — not that it’s the only characteristic to use — lines up well for his future as a relief pitcher; and frankly, it always has.

This season Newcomb is throwing his fastball 65.6% of the time and is throwing it at literally the same velocity (93.3 MPH), on average, as he has for his entire career.

His slider usage has increased this season, with him throwing it 7.1% of the time, compared to 4.5% for his career. The curveball still hovers around his usual 17% rate, with him throwing the hook 15.5% of the time this season. Lastly, his changeup is being thrown 11.7%, an almost 4% decrease from his career average.

But the point remains. He could very well be a 2-3 pitch reliever, and a very good one at that.

When looking at his pitch values (per Fangraphs), Newcomb’s repertoire has depicted a 2-pitch pitcher:

Career

• Fastball: 13.6
• Slider: 1.4
• ————————-
• Curveball: -1.9
• Changeup: -5.7

For 2019, Newcomb still lacks more than two above-average pitches, though it’s still early in the season:

2019 Season

• Fastball: 0.0
• Slider: 0.4
• ————————-
• Curveball: -1.7
• Changeup: -1.9

Now I know a value from a website can be a little difficult to put too much trust in when it’s attempting to quantify such a complex item like pitch effectiveness, but this is all we have at the moment, other than statcast numbers from BaseballSavant.

So speaking of BaseballSavant, let’s check it out. Here’s how each of his offerings have done so far this season (EV = exit velocity in mph):

• Fastball: .347 xWOBA, 87.0 EV, 11.4 K%
• Slider: .188 xWOBA, 83.4 EV, 40 K%
• ————————-
• Curveball: .185 xWOBA, 89.3 EV, 38.5 K%
• Changeup: .416 xWOBA, 90.7 EV, 7.7 K%

Here again, no more than two pitches are giving Newcomb above-average results, and it very well seems that he’s plenty aware of his changeup’s ineffectiveness, as he’s only thrown 28 of them all season.

All of this in the end could mean very little. Without doing more research, it’s hard to determine just how good of a match Newcomb really is, in terms of a permanent bullpen role.

Last Friday, May 24th versus St. Louis, Newcomb worked one inning and surrendered a homer, though the home run was the only hit he allowed and he ended up striking out two Cardinals in that frame.

The day before that, in San Francisco, he also gave up a home run in a one-frame outing, but before that he had made 7-straight appearances out of the ‘pen without surrendering a run.

All of this isn’t to say that Newcomb’s problems will go away while he’s a reliever. His issues may very well still be present.

But regardless of how long this role lasts for him, it’s at least interesting to see that Newcomb, as a reliever, isn’t a completely foreign thought. This could end up working very well for him, as it has so far.

A reliable multi-inning reliever is a prized possession whenever a team can obtain one, and the Braves may have just done that without having to trade any valuable prospects or spend any cash.