He has to show he is better than them. AAA is a good place to sort those kinds of things out. Plus there will be one or two additional openings in the rotation due to injury/regression at the major league level. That's normal. Sometimes there is more, sometimes less. It will sort itself out.
Its hard to say who will get injured. McCarthy obviously is the one who has been more brittle in recent years. But with pitchers even seemingly durable guys go down all the time.
But if our starters defy the odds and stay healthy, I'm good with sending Newcomb down to work on his control while Fried is given a 10-game audition in the majors.