Sean Newcomb Addresses His 2015 FanGraphs Scouting Report

Sean Newcomb has thus far fallen short of the high expectations he’d set coming out of college and during his first years of pro ball. Drafted 15th overall by the Los Angeles Angels in 2014 out of the University of Hartford, the 31-year-old left-hander has a record of 28-28 to go with a 4.50 ERA and a 4.38 FIP over 454 1/3 career big league innings. He’s currently trying to revive his career. Now with his fifth organization after signing with the Boston Red Sox as a minor league free agent over the winter, Newcomb made the team out of spring training — injuries to multiple Red Sox hurlers played a role in his doing so — and he’s since taken the hill six times. Over five starts and one relief appearance, the Massachusetts native has a 4.24 ERA, a 2.61 FIP, and a 27.5% strikeout rate in 23 1/3 frames. All three of his decisions have been losses.

His second major league season suggested stardom was in his future. Traded from the Angels to the Atlanta Braves as part of the Andrelton Simmons deal in November 2015, Newcomb went on to make 30 starts in 2018 and log a 3.90 ERA over 164 innings. In June of that year he was featured here at FanGraphs, with yours truly writing that the hard-throwing southpaw was “rapidly establishing himself as one of the best pitchers in the National League.” A month later, he came within one strike of notching a no-hitter. Then things started going in the wrong direction. Newcomb not only landed in the Braves bullpen in 2019, he had a stint in Triple-A. From 2020-2024, he tossed just 98 2/3 big league innings while toiling for three different teams. His ERA over that span was 6.66 ERA.

Turn the clock back to March 2015, and Newcomb was ranked no. 2 on our Angels Top Prospects list, behind only Andrew Heaney. What did Newcomb’s FanGraphs scouting report look like at the time? Moreover, what does he think about it all these years later? Wanting to find out, I shared some of what our then prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel wrote, and asked Newcomb to respond to it.

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“Newcomb was the Hunter Dozier of the 2014 draft, a player that clubs liked higher than the media consensus had them, partly because teams weren’t sure if they were the only team that had him so high, so they kept it pretty quiet.”

“I think a big part of it was my coming out of the Northeast,” Newcomb replied. “That made me a little more of an unknown, but I did kind of have an idea that I was going to be a first-rounder. I talked to all 30 clubs. I actually thought there was a chance that I was going with the fifth pick to Minnesota.”

“Sources have indicated that the Mariners probably would’ve taken Newcomb with the sixth pick if Alex Jackson wasn’t there.”

“The Mariners, and then there were the Blue Jays, who had two picks [no. 9 and no. 11], and the Mets [no. 10],” recalled Newcomb. “I didn’t think I was going to get past the Mets. But a few things happened, like Kyle Schwarber going higher than expected [no. 4 to the Cubs]. I’d actually played with Schwarber for two years on the Cape, so I would have been shocked had he not been a high pick. I’m not surprised that he’s had a great career.”

“The things scouts like so much about Newcomb are easy to see: he’s huge, athletic, left-handed, has a fresh arm (New England multi-sport kid).”

“That was always kind of the appeal,” Newcomb said. “In college, I only went as many as 90 innings one time. It was 72 the year before. That was the bulk of my pitching career.”

“Sits 91-94, hits 97, and shows surprising pitchability considering his background.”

“I was low- to mid-90s,” Newcomb said. “And yeah, I guess I had pretty much an equal background as far as football and baseball. I also played first as well as pitched. Pitching wasn’t always my focus, but I had a pretty good idea that it was what I’d end up doing. Once I went to college, I fully dedicated to that.

“I’d talked to a lot of different schools for football,” added Newcomb, who is listed at 6-foot-5 and 255 pounds. “I only had a couple of D-I schools that were interested in me for baseball. In football, the looks were more like third-string tight end, but they were higher-level schools. There was Boston College. There was Rutgers, North Carolina State, Purdue. It was both sports for Purdue. They were the only ones who took me seriously for baseball besides Hartford and Belmont University.”

“Newcomb has good control, feel for sequence and a repeatable delivery, but he’s still working on the finer points of pitching and consistency with command and crispness to his stuff.”

“I always had a good fastball, good curveball,” Newcomb said. “I was able to get away with just chucking the ball in college. In pro ball, I definitely had to polish some stuff.”

“The raw elements are here for an ace if he can make all the necessary adjustments and stay healthy.”

“I’m still adjusting to all that,” Newcomb replied with a smile. “Ten years later. I mean, I definitely want to go out there and be a good starter. I’m 31 and still making adjustments, still adding pitches, still learning how to get hitters out consistently. I look up to guys like Charlie Morton. He’s a dude who… he never really scuffled in his 20s, but it wasn’t until he was 32 or 33 that he became a really good pitcher. Maybe I will become [a left-handed Charlie Morton].”

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Previous “Old Scouting Reports Revisited” interviews can be found through these links: Cody Bellinger, Matthew Boyd, Dylan Cease, Matt Chapman, Erick Fedde, Kyle Freeland, Randal Grichuk, Ian Happ, Jeff Hoffman, Matthew Liberatore, Max Scherzer.