Dodgers Select Brent Honeywell

The Dodgers have selected the contract of right-hander Brent Honeywell, according to a team announcement. Honeywell will take the active roster spot of right-hander Joe Kelly, who the club has placed on the 15-day Injured List due to right shoulder inflammation. A corresponding 40-man roster move was not needed to accommodate Honeywell, who will take the spot vacated by veteran outfielder Jason Heyward last week. The Dodgers have also officially announced the placement of veteran lefty Clayton Kershaw on the IL that was reported earlier this evening.

Honeywell, 29, returns to the big league Dodgers for a second stint after being designated for assignment by the club just two weeks ago. Once a consensus top-15 prospect in the sport with the Rays, Honeywell has faced a number of injury-related struggles throughout his career that caused him to miss three full seasons of action from 2018 to 2020 before being limited to just 103 1/3 innings of work across the 2021 and ’22 seasons.

Those long layoffs cost him several key years of development and robbed him of his ability to start, but he re-emerged as a big league reliever with the Padres last season. He posted decent middle relief numbers in San Diego before being squeezed off the roster and ending up with the White Sox, with whom he was shelled for seven runs in 5 2/3 innings down the stretch. That disastrous end to 2023 cost Honeywell his roster spot in Chicago, but he managed to find a minor league deal with the Pirates over the winter and made his way to the majors in July.

In 23 2/3 innings of work with the Pirates and Dodgers this season, Honeywell has posted strong results despite lackluster peripherals. His 2.28 ERA is nothing short of excellent, but the fact that he’s managing to prevent runs to that degree despite a microscopic 13.8% strikeout rate appears likely to be unsustainable, particularly if his whopping 89.6% strand rate regresses to a more typical figure. Even so, Honeywell figures to be as solid a bet as any to eat innings in a beleaguered Dodgers bullpen that was forced to use seven relievers after Kershaw departed in the second inning of last night’s game due to injury.

Honeywell will be taking the roster spot of one of those seven relievers, as Kelly is headed to the IL with a bout of shoulder inflammation. The 38-year-old hurler has been struggling mightily for the past month as he’s posted a 7.71 ERA with a paltry 18.2% strikeout rate and a hefty 13.6% walk rate. Last night’s outing was particularly difficult for the veteran as he surrendered two runs on three hits and two walks in 1 2/3 innings of work while striking out just one and hitting two batters.

Kelly’s brutal results over the past month have caused his season numbers to go from solid to well below average, as he entered August with a 3.93 ERA and a sterling 2.41 FIP. Those numbers now sit at 5.20 and 4.83, respectively. It’s unclear how long Kelly is expected to be out of action, but with just a month left in the regular season it’s possible the right-hander won’t be healthy enough to return before then. Kelly could hypothetically return at some point in the postseason even if he isn’t able to make it back before the end of the regular season, though given his deep struggles of late it’s unclear how strongly he would factor into L.A.’s postseason plans even if healthy.