Per FanGraphs' wins above replacement, the White Sox have two of the top-10 most valuable relievers in the American League.
Grant Taylor (third in AL reliever fWAR) was probably easy enough to guess. He's running a 34.8 percent strikeout rate. and when he's not getting flexed out to single-inning high leverage, the White Sox's purported intent to expand his innings capacity has occasionally seen him working in two-inning chunks that he clearly enjoys.
"They've been fun, I've been enjoying getting to go back out and face hitters a second time," Taylor said. "I've been recovering well."
But the guy a few spots behind him (eighth) in the standings also not-so-secretly longs to be a starter, too, and his ability to shoulder a higher workload is already showing up.
His scoreless streak died just shy of 15 innings last week, but after two more shutout frames Tuesday night, Sean Newcomb is now at a 2.84 ERA with already 31⅔ innings logged out of the bullpen before the end of May. His strikeout rate (21.7 percent) isn't even two-thirds of Taylor's, but with a career-high 55.7 percent ground rate and piddling amounts of hard contact allowed while he rides an increasingly sinker-heavy east-west attack, run estimators suggest his success is perfectly legit.
And like the White Sox as a whole, it looks a lot more impressive if you excise his opening week, where he yielded three of the 10 runs he's been charged with all season. It also coincided with when the 32-year-old veteran felt he was still adjusting from competing for a rotation spot in spring.
"Stretching out in spring, I don't know if it was good or bad, as far as like jumping into the season, having to go shorter one and two [innings]," Newcomb said. "The first back-to-back [appearances] were in-season, so I kind of was just feeling that a little bit. Usually it's good to get that in during spring if you're going to be a pen guy. But last year, threw 92 innings with like the first 20 to 30 being in starts, and then super long, like, long relief, four or five innings, with the Red Sox. I think this year is going to be more manageable if it's starting off the way it's going to be the whole year."
So while Newcomb being on pace for 93⅓ innings through the first third of the season would normally be a red flag, he's feeling right on schedule. Despite dropping down a to a lower arm angle and using his slider -- it's tagged as a slurve but Newcomb says his mindset is slider -- more than ever, he actually has somewhat reverse splits right now (lefties have a .353 BABIP). For Will Venable, who openly admits that managing the bullpen is the most difficult tactical responsibility of his job, a left-handed reliever who holds righties to a .225/.267/.366 line, and isn't subject to normal workload restrictions is a luxury he treasures.
"His versatility is huge, having the performance be what it is as well is a really valuable piece to have." Venable said. "We’ll see what it looks like at the end of the year, but just knowing that he can go shorter spurts more frequently or longer distance[s] less frequently is a good thing to have."
Due to the extra reps in spring, Newcomb would agree that he's probably more comfortable using the back half of his six-pitch arsenal than the average leverage reliever. But it's the front three that are absolutely going to work. Newcomb was appealing to the Sox in free agency because he was already embracing a more east-west, sinker-slurve attack, but he's even more comfortable throwing from a lower slot this year. His arm angle is 5 degrees lower, and the transformation from when he was raising his slot to chase ride on his four-seamer earlier in his career is stark.
He's not Bryan Hudson or Noah Schultz-level tall, but Newcomb is enormous (6'5", 255 pounds), and with long arms. Throwing nearly side-arm with a uniquely short stride, Newcomb's sinker and slurve forces hitters to cover pitches at a tremendous width. But asked if he was leaning into that dynamic more than ever, Newcomb pointed elsewhere.
"I've actually been using the four-seam more than last year," Newcomb said.
"We had a conversation, shoot, it's probably two or three weeks ago, I think we were in [Sacramento]," said pitching coach Zach Bove. "'Hey, the sinker's performing really good to lefties, but four-seam was just-- and the usage was kind of flipped. I think at the time was like 25 percent sinker and like 15 [percent four-seam], and it was a ton of whiffs. I think they have to respect the slurve is such a unique [pitch], guys just run out of barrel with it. Then when you pop them up with that four[-seam], it's kind of like slow them down to speed them up, and they have to cover multiple lanes."
Lo and behold, Newcomb throwing from a low left-handed slot, turning away from his old north-south approach, now has a rise-and-run fastball that racks up the sixth-highest whiff rate for any four-seamer in the sport (min. 100 uses).
He's ramped out to 96 mph a few times in recent outings, but it's a testament to how much individual pitch performance has to be contextualized, that Newcomb thinks the weird shape of the slurve is what allows the four-seamer to rack up these types of results.
"They've got to be ready for a good breaking ball in the zone, a good breaking ball that looks like my fastball that breaks down out of the zone like my slider, and with the good velo, when I pop one up it's just been a lot harder for them," Newcomb said. "It's a little bit different from a sweeper because it's got a little more depth. It's not quite a curveball because it's got the horizontal [movement]. It's got the two planes, so that's been the thing for me, just making sure it's got to have that bite in both directions."
For the last three years, a good reliever, or a good veteran player of any kind on a one-year deal would inspire hand-rubbing from our audience about the future mid-level prospect they might bring back in a rental swap at the trade deadline. But for a White Sox team that's in the playoff mix until reality says otherwise, Newcomb just is another key contributor seeing their spring optimism validated.
"We knew there was a bunch of talent in spring and potential for everybody, for me specifically in the bullpen," Newcomb said. "The guys I was around with [Jordan] Hicks and Seranthony [Domínguez], and I know Hudson from my short time with the Cubs. I know how good he can be, so it's cool to see."
