For his entire career, baseball has tried to break Brent Honeywell Jr.’s spirit. Over and over and over again.
Honeywell Jr. is the son of former minor league pitcher Brent Honeywell Sr., who also coached his son in high school. His father’s cousin is 1974 national league Cy Young award winner Mike Marshall, one of the weirdest but best pitching minds in baseball history.
And yet, surrounded by such accomplished pitchers, Honeywell went undrafted out of the high school where his father served as his coach.
Unfazed, Honeywell bet on himself and went to little known Walters State Community College. There, he put up the kind of numbers the MLB could no longer ignore, going 10-3 with a 2.81 ERA and 102 strikeouts against only 15 walks.
He was suddenly a highly touted prospect, and the Tampa Bay Rays took him with the 72nd overall pick in the second round of the 2014 MLB draft.
And he immediately set out to prove that he belonged at the professional level. In his first professional season, he had a superb 1.07 ERA and 40 strikeouts in 33.1 innings over nine games with the rookie level Princeton Rays.
He rose all the way to High-A by the end of his second MILB season in 2015 and debuted on the MLB top 100 prospects list ahead of the 2016 season.
The righty only continued his meteoric rise through the Rays’ minor league system in 2017, passing quickly through Double-A and all the way to Triple-A Durham by the end of the season. He also reached as high as No. 11 on Baseball America’s top prospect list. It seemed like nothing was going to stop him from making the Rays rotation in 2018 and becoming their young ace.
And then, his arm literally fell apart.
It started with a torn UCL in 2018 spring training. Honeywell ultimately had to undergo Tommy John surgery to repair the torn ligament and miss the entire 2018 season.
And then, on the road back from Tommy John in June of 2019, he fractured his right elbow during a bullpen session and had to miss the entirety of the 2019 season.
Missing one season is tough for a developing player. Missing two is practically a death sentence.
But the cruel twists of fate weren’t done there. Honeywell had to undergo another procedure on his right arm in 2020, missing the entire 2020 season as well.
Three straight seasons completely destroyed by injury. Even the best pitcher would be totally disheartened, and a young pitcher trying to prove himself had to be completely appalled.
But by the beginning of the 2021 season, Honeywell was finally healthy. And to make matters even better, the Rays immediately gave him a chance at the big leagues. On April 11, 2021, Honeywell made his debut against the New York Yankees and pitched two perfect innings with two strikeouts, including one off Yankees star Giancarlo Stanton.
But the Rays gave him little chance in the big leagues after that. He only pitched three total games for them that season and they traded him to the Oakland Athletics in the offseason.
In the Bay, the injury bug came right back. He suffered a stress reaction in his right elbow in April and was out until September of that year. In the few appearances he was able to make, he never found a rhythm and performed poorly.
In 2023 he was with the San Diego Padres organization for part of the year and the Chicago White Sox organization for another, but was DFA’d by both teams eventually. He signed with the Pirates at the beginning of 2024 and then ultimately was DFA’d by them too in July.
On July 13, he signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers. And something clicked.
In 10 initial games with the Dodgers, he went 20.1 innings and pitched to a superb 2.22 ERA. It was looking like he’d finally figured out how to pitch well at the big league level.
But the Dodgers inexplicably also DFA’d him in August.
Fortunately for LA, who would have made an incredible mistake by letting Honeywell go then, he cleared waivers and was sent outright to the Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate in Oklahoma City for a stint before eventually rejoining the major league club. He finished the season with a still-incredible 2.62 ERA in 34.1 major league innings.
However, the Dodgers weren’t done leaving him out, as he was left off the NLDS roster. But then Alex Vesia got hurt, leaving a roster spot open for Honeywell on the NLCS roster to face the Mets.
Honeywell didn’t pitch the most glamorous NLCS innings. He only pitched in the Dodgers’ two losses, Game 2 and Game 5.
He did throw his screwball, much to the delight of Pitching Ninja Rob Friedman. Perhaps he learned the rare pitch from his Uncle Iron Mike. He became the only pitcher since the pitch tracking era started in 2008 to get a swing and miss on a curveball in the postseason.
But he also surrendered eight hits and four earned runs in his two appearances. But that doesn’t nearly tell the whole story.
Offensively, the Dodgers famously have one of the deepest rosters in baseball history. Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman are all former (or current) MVPs and Max Muncy, Teoscar Hernandez and Will Smith have all been the best hitter at their respective position at one time or another.
But the pitching has taken a severe hit this season. Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, Michael Grove, Joe Kelly, Tony Gonsolin, Brusdar Graterol, River Ryan, Kyle Hurt, Dustin May and Emmet Sheehan are all currently injured. That list of Dodger pitchers on the IL is absurd. You could arguably create the best pitching staff in baseball using just the Dodgers’ injured pitchers.
And of the remaining pitchers on the Dodger roster that can eat up innings, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Walker Buehler are working their way back from injury as well. Needless to say, innings are coming at a premium for the Dodgers right now.
So even though they weren’t the prettiest, Honeywell’s 7.2 innings across the two games were absolutely crucial. They allowed Dave Roberts to rest his best arms for more high-leverage situations later on in the series.
All of this led to two incredible interviews after the Dodgers clinched a berth in the World Series with a win over the Mets in Game 6.
One of them involved Honeywell and Muncy. Muncy beamed as he pointed out that Honeywell threw 4.2 innings in Game 5, and then urged Honeywell to tell the reporter what he told the righty after Honeywell came out of the game after recording those 14 outs.
“[Muncy] said you just won us Game 6,” Honeywell said.
But it’s Honeywell’s solo interview that will really tug at your heartstrings.
After all the injuries and all the adversity, Honeywell was asked what it meant to make it to the World Series.
He could barely speak through his obvious emotion, but he eventually pointed out that his younger self was absolutely freaking out and this was all he wanted to do his whole life.
That just epitomizes the spirit of Brent Honeywell. He may not be the best Dodger pitcher, the Dodger pitcher who Roberts will turn to to start or close the clinching game. He’s more likely a candidate to be left off the Dodgers postseason roster entirely if someone on LA’s extensive injury list finally heals than be on the mound when his team wins it all.
But after all he’s been through, how wonderful is it that he’s even made it this far, and that his inner child is alive and well.
Life has thrown Brent Honeywell Jr a lot of curveballs. But life messed with the wrong guy. He’s the only one who has a screwball to throw right back.