2:15pm: The deal does include an invite to big league spring training, per Justice delos Santos of the Mercury News.
1:05pm: The Giants are going to sign right-hander Brent Honeywell Jr. to a minor league contract, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive. Presumably, the righty will be invited to big league camp in spring training.
Honeywell, 31 next month, didn’t pitch anywhere in 2025. He was non-tendered by the Dodgers after the 2024 season and didn’t find a landing spot after that. What he can provide after sitting out an entire season is unknown but there’s little harm for the Giants in giving him a non-roster pact and then taking a look at him in some spring appearances.
The righty’s trajectory has been a uniquely challenging one. He was a top 100 prospect about a decade ago before an awful series of injury setbacks sent him off course. He required Tommy John surgery in 2018, suffered an elbow fracture in 2019, required nerve decompression surgery in 2020 and then suffered an olecranon stress reaction in his elbow in 2022.
By the end of the 2022 season, he had just three major league appearances under his belt. He stayed healthy enough in 2023 to pitch 52 1/3 innings between the Padres and White Sox. His 4.82 earned run average was somewhat serviceable but he was passed through outright waivers in August of that year.
He settled for a minor league deal with the Pirates going into 2024. He was on their roster for a few days in July before going to the Dodgers via waivers. The Dodgers passed him through waivers again in August but selected him back to the roster a little over a week later, so he was on their roster for most of the second half.
He finished the year with a 2.63 ERA, though in fairly lucky fashion. His 7.4% walk rate was solid and his 42.2% grounder rate around average but he only struck out 12.1% of batters faced, barely half of league par. He got some help from a .252 batting average on balls in play and 80% strand rate. Measures like his 4.28 FIP and flat 5.00 SIERA feel he would have fared far worse with neutral treatment from the baseball gods. He got to make three postseason appearances for the Dodgers as their mop-up guy when losing, allowing nine earned runs in 8 2/3 innings.
Honeywell got himself a ring for that effort but was not tendered a contract for 2025 and ended up sitting out the campaign. The Giants go into 2026 with their bullpen seeming weaker than last year. They traded Camilo Doval and Tyler Rogers at last year’s deadline, then lost Randy Rodríguez to Tommy John surgery.
Their approach to rebuilding the relief group has been to take low-cost fliers on reclamation projects. They signed Jason Foley, Rowan Wick and Sam Hentges but will likely start the season with all three on the injured list. Gregory Santos and Michael Fulmer were signed to minor league deals after a couple of injury-marred seasons.
Now Honeywell jumps into the mix as some extra non-roster depth. If he is able to secure a roster spot, he is out of options but has less than three years of club control, meaning he could theoretically be retained for future seasons via arbitration. He’ll have to earn a chance and make the most of it before that becomes any kind of realistic consideration.
Photo courtesy of David Frerker, Imagn Images
I remember when this kid was in the minors for the Rays and he complained about Chris Archer’s performance. Christ, I’m old.
It was only 10 years ago…
I was today’s years old when I heard this story.
It’s funny watching those where are they now videos. Top 10 2012 prospects, had like 2 guys still playing
This organization is baffling. I get it, he’s a low-cost flier, etc., but their moves (or lack thereof) don’t make much sense.
I wish them the best of luck assembling a championship roster with Devers and Arraez on it.
Devers > Durbin
It makes sense to put Devers on a team when trying to assemble a championship roster since Devers already has a WS ring.
Yes, a 3X batting champion and a player with MVP votes across five seasons are definitely not guys you’d want when assembling a championship roster.
Nice, this bothers you? That’s baffling
Decent pickup although I wonder if he had some sort of injury last year I find it hard to believe he didn’t play anywhere and was healthy considering his decent results in 2024.
It’s a depth piece and never likely to see the Majors. Nothing to get twisted about.
with Arraez on the infield they will need to see an uptick in his K rate.
This move might end Honeywell
I get it, makes sense, signing a bunch of flyers in the hopes they stick, stop gaps until the next wave of arms get closer and fall backs if the current crop don’t pan out. Keep em coming
This guy looks just like Jake from Jomboy Media.