‘I want to be a screwballer’: Honeywell brings unique set of goals
BRADENTON, Fla. — It’s a pitch that draws a not-so-straight line from former MLB greats such as Christy Mathewson, Juan Marichal and Fernando Valenzuela to this current Pirates club. It’s also something of an heirloom for Brent Honeywell Jr. and his family.
Think things are always a little bit screwy around the Pirates? Well, yeah. But this is different.
Honeywell Jr., a former top prospect and a pitcher the Pirates signed to a minor league deal on Feb. 8, certainly has a unique pitch mix. So rare, in fact, that he threw a pitch nobody else did in 2023 — a screwball.
It’s something he learned from his dad, Brent Sr., whose cousin is 1974 National League Cy Young Award winner Mike Marshall. Relying on the screwball, Marshall was a rubber-armed reliever who amazingly worked 208 1/3 innings that season.
Ironically, Brent Honeywell Sr. signed with the Pirates in 1988 and pitched three seasons in the minor leagues for them. He, too, used the pitch and taught it to his son, finally allowing Brent Jr. to throw it as a senior in high school.
“It’s something I can do that not a lot of people can,” Honeywell Jr. said. “It’s who I am.”
If nothing else, Honeywell Jr. represents one of the more unique stories of Pirates spring training. The Rays selected him in the second round of the 2014 MLB draft. By 2016, Honeywell was ranked No. 65 on Baseball America’s top 100 prospects list and ascended to 14th two years later. Then, the injuries started.
Tommy John surgery in 2018. An elbow fracture in 2019. Honeywell Jr. had another procedure to decompress a nerve in his right arm in 2020 and a second elbow fracture in 2022. Finally healthy in 2023, Honeywell showed what he could do with the Padres, producing a 4.05 ERA in 46 2/3 innings before he was a roster casualty around the trade deadline.
“I thought I threw the ball decently well last year in the first half, when I got the opportunities that I was looking to get the majority of the year,” Honeywell Jr. said.
For those opportunities to continue in Pittsburgh, Honeywell Jr. obviously must stay healthy. But more than that, he’ll need to crystallize his pitch mix and — in his mind — lean into the screwball in a way that he never has before.
It’s a pitch, by the way, that required some fascinating training for Honeywell Jr. as a kid. His dad had him lob six-pound shot put balls while turning his palm outward — the pronating motion required to create arm-side action.
Honeywell Jr. also did extensive band workouts he referred to as tubing to increase pliability.
“Any time you have anything unique — whether it’s approach angle or a pitch hitters aren’t familiar with — it’s an advantage,” said Dewey Robinson, the Pirates’ senior advisor for pitching development. Robinson was with the Rays when they drafted Honeywell Jr. and knows him well.
When it comes to the rarity of throwing screwballs, nobody has thrown 100 or more in a season since Trevor Bauer in 2014 — at least with how the pitch was classified via Baseball Prospectus.
Hector Santiago earned more credit for being Major League Baseball’s last real screwballer, and he threw 102 in 2013. Only four times since 2007 (as far back as Baseball Prospectus’ PITCHf/x data goes) has a pitcher thrown 100 or more screwballs.
“He’s had some success at the major league level,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “He’s right in the heart of this competition for our bullpen, and it’s a different look.
“To build a really successful bullpen, we’ve got to have guys with different looks.”
Honeywell Jr. threw his screwball just 7.9% of the time in 2023, per Statcast. It averaged 80.2 mph and netted a .211 batting average and .368 slugging percentage against, plus a whiff rate of 14.7%.
The usage rate is not enough, Honeywell insisted.
“I want to be a screwballer this year,” Honeywell said.
If Honeywell can earn a spot in the Pirates bullpen, we’ll talk more about the right-handed breaker with a hump to it and running in on same-side hitters, movement more pronounced than the two on a changeup or two-seamer.
“It’s got a lot of depth to it,” Robinson said. “It looks like a lefthanded curveball.”
The biggest remaining hurdle for Honeywell Jr. involves achieving a balance with all of his offerings.
Honeywell Jr.’s four-seam fastball averaged 94.8 mph in 2023 but recently hasn’t performed at an elite level. There’s a traditional breaking ball — classified as both a cutter and sweeper — that has. The Pirates also really like Honeywell Jr.’s changeup.
That features a somewhat similar movement profile, but it tunnels better off Honeywell’s fastball, the three offerings complementing one another and theoretically deceiving the eyes of hitters.
For his part, Honeywell Jr. has talked to his dad about Pittsburgh as a city, its blue-collar reputation, the scrappy style of play the Pirates are trying to cultivate and the opportunity he can seemingly pounce on here.
Which would mean throwing a pitch barely seen across MLB of late. During the past five years, we’ve seen nearly seven times as many knuckleballs (498) as screwballs (76).
“I think this is where I do it,” Honeywell Jr. said. “I don’t think I threw it enough last year.”
“But bottom line, you have to make the pitch. Do whatever you have to do to get the guy out.”