Red Sox News: Sean Newcomb to start season in rotation; meet the new guy

Who’s he and the place does he come from?

He’s Sean Newcomb, and he comes from quite a lot of locations. One in all which is Brockton, Massachusetts. As a Brockton resident, he was “rocked” by the Whaling Metropolis Little League, for those who consider what my buddy from the realm says. Luckily for Newcomb, the alleged beatdown didn’t derail his profession as he went on to play college baseball on the College of Hartford and was chosen within the first spherical of the draft. As knowledgeable, Newcomb has bounced round. He spent the primary five-and-a-half seasons of his profession in Atlanta with the Braves and has since pitched for the Cubs, and A’s. He additionally frolicked in San Francisco’s minor league system, and now he’ll start the 2025 season as Boston’s fifth starter.

What place does he play?

He’s a pitcher, one which primarily makes use of his left hand.

Is he any good?

I don’t know. Why are you asking me?

Isn’t it your job to know?

You’re proper. Newcomb hasn’t thrown many main league innings over the previous two seasons, which usually isn’t a very good signal. On the identical time, he gained a spot within the rotation, so he should be doing one thing proper. Newcomb doesn’t throw exhausting and has to depend on command to get by. As a pitcher who makes use of a four-seam fastball with bizarre form, even command isn’t at all times sufficient. The Red Sox, after all, don’t really feel the necessity to throw four-seams that don’t work, in order that they made some modifications.

The largest change for Newcomb is that he’s added a reduce fastball, and decreased his four-seam utilization. He wants a pitch to get strikes in addition to miss barrels, and the cutter seems like it might be that. Right here’s a have a look at his pitch areas from his final statcast begin.

This seems fairly good to me, a minimum of when it comes to a fill-in fifth starter. The cutters are principally noticed on the glove aspect, whereas the sinkers are stored on the arm aspect. He didn’t have a really feel for his curveballs, however the changeup was stored on the backside of the zone. As a left-handed pitcher, well-placed cutters and changeups to righties will get the job achieved. Once more, I’m not anticipating Newcomb to gentle the world on hearth, however the arsenal needs to be sufficient to get by means of a lineup twice, which is all we must always anticipate from Newcomb.

Inform me a enjoyable reality.

His first collegiate win was a no-hitter. He additionally went nearly 40 innings with out permitting a run to start out his junior 12 months. Being so significantly better than everybody else as a pitcher should be so sick, it doesn’t matter what stage.

What’s he doing in his photograph up there?

Profitable the ultimate spot within the Purple Sox rotation together with his shiny new cutter.

What’s his function on the 2025 Purple Sox?

Matt Gross did some counting and found out how Newcomb ought to determine into the image. Take it away, Matt.