Brent Honeywell Shows He’s Ready For Prime Time

Brent Honeywell (Getty Images)

MIAMI—For many baseball fans and even baseball writers, Brent Honeywell is the guy who throws a screwball.

He showed Sunday at the Futures Game that there’s much more to him than that.

Ranked No. 14 on Baseball America’s Midseason Top 100, Honeywell is the highest-ranked healthy pitcher on the list, two spots behind injured Cardinals righty Alex Reyes. He looked the part for the U.S. Team on Sunday, dominating a stacked World lineup for two scoreless innings with four strikeouts en route to game MVP honors.

“I honestly don’t know where this one’s going,” Honeywell said of the MVP trophy, “but maybe my mom and dad will play rock-paper-scissors for it.”

The 22-year-old from Carnesville, Ga., had all his stuff working Sunday, throwing only one of his famous screwballs. He threw four-seam fastballs up to 97.7 mph, along with a curveball, several effective changeups and an occasional slider.

But the screwball, for a called third strike against Alex Verdugo, might be what he’s most remembered for. After all, he’s related to Mike Marshall, the 1974 Cy Young Award winner who rode his screwball to stardom.

The Dodgers’ Verdugo said the pitch acted “like a lefthanded curveball. It just broke right back into the zone. It’s one of those where you tip your cap.”

Catcher Chance Sisco had to handle four different pitchers, starting with Honeywell and his five pitches. He’s faced Honeywell once as a hitter in Triple-A and said he was more fun to catch than to face.

“His stuff looked better catching him than facing him, because you get to see his stuff the whole way and see the movement from out of his hand to my mitt,” Sisco said. “Two innings, he’s going to throw everything he has, the whole time out.”

Honeywell said he tried to pace himself and not get too hyped for his two-inning performance, and his results showed he was successful. His competitiveness gives him another weapon against hitters, and scouts have seen it since high school.

“He was all projection and looseness,” a Georgia area scout with a National League club said Sunday, “and he still has that looseness. His father (also named Brent) was his high school coach, and that was a big reason he did not get overused in high school.

“He showed a crooked arm—nothing he threw was straight, and he’s still that way.”

Cold weather, a poor start when crosschecked early in a showdown with Winder-Barrow High and 2013 first-rounder Travis Demeritte, and a busy year in Georgia caused most teams to see Honeywell only with area scouts, and he wasn’t crosschecked much as the spring went on. He also hadn’t pitched for the famed East Cobb travel program; instead, he sought to pitch against them with the TNT travel program.

“Would I want to play with them?” Honeywell said Saturday. “Or would I rather pitch against them and win every time?”

He chose the latter, but perhaps as a result of losing some of that exposure East Cobb’s programs provide, he wasn’t even drafted in 2013.

Georgia pitching isn’t a strong draft demographic. Two area scouts contacted for this story confirmed the story I’ve heard for years, that the travel-ball culture in Georgia often leads to a win-at-all-costs mentality that causes burnout of prep arms in the state. Adam Wainwright, drafted in 2000, remains the gold standard for Peach State pitching prospects, but oft-injured Zack Wheeler might be the best current bet for a big league starter from Georgia’s high school ranks—until Honeywell arrives.

“A lot of kids have left their arms at the East Cobb complex,” the veteran scout said. “A lot of clubs are wary of Georgia high school pitchers. I go through it every year, and there aren’t a lot of them moving up the minors. But next year’s draft will test that.”

Indeed, Honeywell’s success could have an impact on the 2018 draft class, as three of the top pitchers in the prep class—righthanders Kumar Rocker and Ethan Hankins and lefthander Luke Bartnicki—reside in Georgia.

“It sure does affect them,” the scout said. “The track record is the track record. But those three boys are just part of it. It’s going to be a strong year in Georgia.”

As it turns out, it was a strong year in 2013, with outfielders Clint Frazier and Austin Meadows joined by Demeritte in the first round. But only one high school righty was drafted and signed out of the state that year—Brad Keller, an eighth-rounder who went to the Diamondbacks who has reached Double-A.

That was the draft where Honeywell wasn’t picked at all, but after one season at Walters State (Tenn.) JC, he vaulted up draft boards. As the draft approached, he had a series of workouts, including one at Wrigley Field for the Cubs. Chicago officials have noted it over the years with regret. Honeywell called it the “best bullpen I’ve ever thrown” Saturday. A Cubs source contacted Sunday confirmed club officials argued about drafting Honeywell high despite their limited looks at him, with the argument being about process versus the wicked workout they’d just seen.

In the end, the Cubs hoped to sneak him to their third-round pick at No. 78 overall. The Rays instead took him at No. 72 in the supplemental second round, signed him for $800,000 and have helped him blossom into the game’s top healthy pitching prospect.

“They knew exactly where I was going to go,” Honeywell said in retrospect. “That’s on them, you know? I’m not saying I don’t want to be a Cub later on. But some things happened, back door, you know how it goes on in the draft.”

What happened is, Honeywell became a Ray, an organization that counts pitcher development as its greatest strength. Honeywell, who almost became a Cub and who avoided the Georgia prep pitching graveyard, may become just the latest example.