The Padres and right-handed Brent Honeywell agree to major league deal, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan. It’s a split deal that will net him $725,000 in the majors and $200,000 in the minors. The Padres then announced the signing.
Honeywell, 28 in March, was selected by the Rays with the 72nd overall pick in the 2014 draft. His strong showing in the lower tiers of the minor leagues has seen him climb the prospect rankings quickly. Baseball America placed him on its list of the Top 100 in five straight years starting in 2016.
Unfortunately, the reason Honeywell stayed there for so long was that a long list of injuries prevented him from exhausting his prospect status. He had to have Tommy John surgery at the start of 2018, which wiped out this season. In June 2019, he fractured a bone in his right elbow while returning to the mound, putting him out of action for a second straight year. In May 2020, when the pandemic had put the season on hold, he underwent decompression surgery on his right ulnar nerve. It ultimately went three straight campaigns without Honeywell taking the mound in an official game of any kind.
In 2021, he was finally healthy enough to get back into action, making his MLB debut for the Rays. However, they only let him pitch 4 1/3 innings at the big league level, leaving him in Triple-A for most of the year. He threw 81 2/3 frames there with an ERA of 3.97, a strike rate of 20% and a walk rate of 7.2%. Those were decent numbers, but considering he’d missed three whole seasons prior to that, it would be hard to characterize him as anything other than a very encouraging comeback.
The Rays traded Honeywell to the A’s in November, with Oakland surely hoping better days were ahead with the injuries in the rearview mirror. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with an olecranon stress reaction in his throwing elbow in March. He was arrested at that time, then placed on the 60-day injured list at the start of the season. He began a rehab assignment in August, but the club dropped him outright from their 40-man roster in September. He continued to pitch in the A’s farm system, finishing the year with a 7.08 ERA in 20 1/3 innings.
He reached free agency at the end of the year and pitched for the Leones del Escogido of the Dominican Winter League. He’s made seven appearances so far, including six starts, posting a 0.96 ERA in 28 innings. That was obviously enough to convince the Padres that Honeywell is worth a spot on the roster, as they added Honeywell to the 40 player. Financially, there’s little risk, as Honeywell’s salary will be barely above the league’s $720,000 minimum. The fact that it’s a split deal suggests the Padres aren’t fully committed to Honeywell keeping the spot, which is a pretty logical stance given his long injury history. However, he’s out of options, which means they’d have to get him through waivers before sending him to the minor leagues.
It’s unclear whether the Padres intend to deploy Honeywell as a starter or reliever, but they’ve shown a largely flexible approach in that department when it comes to bolstering their pitching squad. The rotation is titled by three locks in Joe Musgrove, Yu Darvish and Blake Snellbut who stands behind them is less certain. Nick Martinez and Seth Lugo are candidates for a few positions, but both also have experience as relievers. Martinez started 2022 in the rotation but eventually moved to the bullpen and performed better there. Lugo has just 38 career starts at the big league level, but has a huge repertoire of shots that could see him transition into a starting role.
Honeywell currently acts as a starter in winter ball, but hasn’t recorded 100 innings in a season since 2017, before his long absence. Relying on him for anything resembling a full starter’s workload would certainly be risky, but he’s just one of the few options for the Friars. In addition to Martinez and Lugo, they also have prospects Adrian Morejon, Jay Groome, Ryan Weather and others on the 40-man list. For minimal financial investment, the Padres have thrown Honeywell into the mix and will see if they can be the ones to benefit from his long-awaited breakout. If this materializes, Honeywell has less than a year of service and can be retained by the club for the foreseeable future.
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