The Giants will sign a right-hander Brent Honeywell Jr. to a minor league contract, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive. Most likely, the righty will be invited to big league camp in spring training.
Honeywell, who turns 31 next month, hasn’t pitched in 2025. He wasn’t tendered by the Dodgers after the 2024 season and didn’t receive a promotion move after that. What he can offer after sitting out the rest of the season is unknown, but there is little harm to the Giants in giving him a non-selective contract and looking at him for another spring appearance.
The righty trail has been a unique challenge. He was a top 100 man a decade ago before a nasty series of injuries derailed him. He needed Tommy John surgery in 2018, fractured his elbow in 2019, needed 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 three major league games 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 waived in August of that year.
He got a minor league deal with the Pirates that runs through 2024. He was on the roster for a few days in July before going to the Dodgers on waivers. The Dodgers moved him off waivers again in August but optioned him back to the lineup a little more than 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 he was lucky. His 7.4% walk rate was solid and his 42.2% slugging rate about average but he only struck out 12.1% of the batters he faced, about half of the league average. He got help from a .252 batting average on balls in play and an 80% slugging percentage. Measures like his 4.28 FIP and flat 5.00 SIERA feel like he’s been pretty upset with the baseball gods. He made three postseason appearances for the Dodgers as their mop-up guy in losses, allowing nine earned runs in 8 2/3 innings.
Honeywell earned a ring in that effort but was not offered a 2025 contract and ended up sitting out the campaign. The Giants head into 2026 with their bullpen looking weaker than last year. They trade Camilo Doval again Tyler Rogers by last year’s deadline, it had been lost Randy RodrÃguez to Tommy John surgery.
Their method of rebuilding the aid group was to take low-cost tracts from rehabilitation projects. They signed Jason Foley, Rowan Wick again Sam Hentges but will likely start the season with all three on the injured list. Gregory Santos again Michael Fulmer they were signed to minor league deals after several injury-plagued seasons.
Now Honeywell is jumping into the mix as another non-program depth. If he can earn a roster spot, he has no options but has less than three years of club control, meaning he could be retained for future seasons by settlement. He will have to find the opportunity and make the most of it before that becomes any kind of realistic consideration.
Photo courtesy of David Frerker, Imagn Images
