The Athletics have acquired veteran left-hander Sean Newcomb from the Giants in exchange for minor league outfielder Trenton Brooks, per the teams’ transaction logs at MLB.com. It’s a rare post-deadline trade that sees a player going each way (as opposed to the more common cash trades in August) and an even rarer trade between the two Bay Area clubs. Both Newcomb and Brooks were eligible to be traded by virtue of the fact that they have not appeared on a 40-man roster or Major League injured list in 2023.
Newcomb, 30, signed a minor league deal with the Giants over the winter and has primarily worked out of the bullpen in their system, pitching to a 3.16 ERA in 31 1/3 innings with Triple-A Sacramento. The command issues that have long plagued Newcomb persist (15.3% walk rate in Triple-A), but he’s fanned an impressive 30.5% of his opponents and has clearly changed up his repertoire a bit, based on a career-high 59.4% ground-ball rate. The left-hander posted a combined 35.2% grounder rate in 73 2/3 innings from 2020-22 — his most recent MLB work.
Early in his career, Newcomb looked like a budding mainstay on the Braves’ roster. Acquired from the Angels in the trade that sent Andrelton Simmons to Anaheim, Newcomb posted a 3.87 ERA and 23% strikeout rate through his first 332 1/3 big league innings — splitting his appearances roughly evenly between the rotation (2017-18) and bullpen (2019).
The 2020 season was a disaster for the former first-round pick, however, as he was tagged for 17 earned runs in just 13 2/3 innings spread across four starts. Newcomb walked 18% of his opponents the following year while pitching 32 1/3 innings out of the bullpen, and he yielded 27 runs in 27 2/3 innings between the Braves and Cubs last year.
Overall, Newcomb has a 4.52 ERA in 406 big league innings, but the vast majority of that success came upwards of five years ago at this point. He can be a free agent at season’s end if he’s not added to the big league roster, so it stands to reason that the A’s wouldn’t have given up a minor league player if he weren’t going to be selected to the Majors sometime soon. In the event that Newcomb can reestablish himself as a viable big league arm — presumably out of the bullpen, given his ’23 usage — the A’s would be able to control him through the end of the 2025 season via arbitration.
Brooks, 28, is in his first season with Oakland after spending the prior seven season in Cleveland’s system. The former 17th-round pick signed a minor league deal with the A’s after reaching minor league free agency, and he’s turned in a stout .299/.405/.529 output (125 wRC+) in 412 plate appearances in Triple-A this year. He’s turned in career-best marks in home runs (16) doubles (29) and stolen bases (five) — all while walking at a career-high (in a full season) 13.8% mark against just a 14.6% strikeout rate.
Defensively, Brooks has rotated between first base (816 innings), left field (1460 innings) and right field (1469 innings) throughout his professional career. He’s played all three spots in 2023, though this year’s usage skews more toward left field. He’ll give the Giants a left-handed-hitting corner option at a time when outfield options Mike Yastrzemski, AJ Pollock, Mitch Haniger and Mark Mathias are all on the injured list.
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