Atlanta Braves 2020 Player Reviews: Sean Newcomb

Through no fault of his own, Sean Newcomb was destined to be a villain in Atlanta before he ever threw his first pitch. Having been acquired in 2015 for defensive wizard and fan favorite Andrelton Simmons, Newcomb stepped into an undesirable situation to fill the shoes of a player that didn’t have to get traded. To be fair, nothing is off the table during a rebuild, but the Newcomb-for-Simmons trade was emotionally brutal based on the timing and intent. Even if Newk had lived up to the potential Braves evaluators saw in his electric left arm, that trade still would have been deemed questionable.

Alas, over the course of nearly four seasons, Newcomb has failed to launch, leaving his acquisition in the Hector Olivera-for-Alex Wood category of catastrophic rebuild-era trades.

The Braves’ decision to return Newk to the rotation to start 2020 was an interesting one, considering it had been less than a year since he had lost his starting job and transitioned into the bullpen. When the season finally rolled around, Newcomb became yet another casualty of the Braves’ 2020 rotation, whose luck at times resembled Spinal Tap’s luck with drummers. One after another they fell by the wayside, leaving the Braves (and Spinal Tap) to wonder where to turn next.

After bottoming out against the Phillies on August 10, allowing eight runs over 1 ⅓ innings, Newcomb was relegated to the alternate site. He was recalled in mid-September, but sent back down without throwing a pitch. In a year where the Braves desperately needed someone - anyone - to stick around to absorb some innings, Newcomb just couldn’t get the job done.

What went right for Newcomb in 2020?

Truth be told, not much. But just below the surface, there were a few things worth examining.

Newk’s proclivity for issuing walks has been the most troublesome aspect of his profile ever since his amateur days, but 2020 saw him post an 8.6% walk rate, the best of his career. It was also the second consecutive year of keeping his walk rate under 4.0 BB/9 (though it was close, at 3.95 BB/9).

He posted a career best 87.3 MPH average exit velocity across all of his pitches, and the 82.6 MPH generated by his changeup was the lowest exit velocity of any pitch he has ever recorded over a season.

If it seems like I’m really having to dig for some positives - any positives - to make things seem like they weren’t as bad as they actually were, well...that is a very astute observation.

What went wrong for Newcomb in 2020?

A glimpse at Newcomb’s 2020 stat line quickly reveals the worst season of his career, and it is unfortunately related to multiple aspects of his game. Newk set career worsts in ERA (11.20 - yikes), FIP (7.51), xFIP (6.53), HR/9 (2.63), home runs per fly ball (20%), strikeout rate (a paltry 6.43 K’s per nine innings), left on base rate (51.3%), opponents’ BABIP (.340) and ground ball rate (36%). All things considered, it was just a bad season.

Granted, there are some outliers at play, and over the course of 162 games (if he had been allowed to stick around for them), some of these might have normalized. For instance, his 51.3% left-on-base rate indicates he had some awful luck - his career mark was 75.8% coming into the season. If that number even closely resembled his prior output, his 2020 line might have looked much different.

We can also apply this to 7.51 FIP. This is the first season Newk’s FIP did not fall between 4.14 and 4.24, a very narrow but specific range for him to position himself year over year. The aforementioned improving walk rate, which feeds into FIP, is offset by the preposterous uptick in home runs (a number which also feeds into FIP). Coming into 2020, Newcomb had averaged between 0.90 and 1.05 home runs per nine innings over his career. Again, a very specific window in which he operates, and has always operated. So, seeing his HR/9 spike from ~1 to 2.63 appears to taint multiple other stats surrounding it, and getting to log a few more innings might have helped things positively regress to the mean.

Then again, batters hit .448 against Newcomb’s fastball this year, and slugged .759 on the pitch, so maybe the entire problem wasn’t time - it was that he was just getting crushed.

What’s his outlook for 2021?

If it seems like Newcomb has been around forever, it’s because he has. 2021 will be Newcomb’s fifth year with the big league club, and though he has dealt with demotions over each of the last two seasons, he still figures to have a role with this team next year. His opportunities as a starter are likely done, as the bouts with consistency have expanded to limit his abilities as a multi-inning option, but he did have moderate success as a reliever in 2019. If the Braves opt to keep him on the big league club in 2021, it will be in the bullpen.