The Padres are bringing back a familiar arm.
San Diego has agreed to a minor league deal with right-hander Brent Honeywell, according to Jordan Shusterman of Yahoo Sports. Honeywell, 31, last pitched in the majors in 2024 and spent part of that season with the Dodgers, where he ended up as part of their World Series run.
Honeywell’s path back to the Padres comes after a season away from the big leagues. He went unsigned through all of 2025, then signed a minor league contract with the Giants in February before being released prior to Opening Day.
For Honeywell, this is a return to a place where he has already logged real big-league innings. He was with San Diego in 2023, making 36 appearances and posting a 4.05 ERA over 46.2 innings.
His stop in Los Angeles was the stretch that put him back in the spotlight. Honeywell joined the Dodgers in July 2024 and worked 18 regular season games with a 2.62 ERA in 34.1 innings. He wasn’t included on the roster for the National League Division Series against the Padres, but after left-hander Alex Vesia was injured, he was added for the NL Championship Series against the Mets.
He appeared in two games in the NLCS and one in the World Series, handling the kind of innings that don’t always make headlines but matter plenty in October. Multiple Dodgers later pointed to Honeywell as a key piece in preserving their high-leverage relievers for the next games.
“I don’t do it for me, I do it for these guys in here,” Honeywell said at the time. “I love these guys.
I love [Dave Roberts]. I love everybody over here.
I told [Roberts] in the dugout, ‘This is my game until it’s not.’ And I tried to keep us in the game."
Honeywell’s career has been defined by stop-and-start progress. Drafted by the Rays in the second round in 2014, he entered 2018 as one of baseball’s top prospects before Tommy John surgery changed his trajectory. A comeback attempt in 2019 was interrupted by a fractured bone in his right elbow, and another surgery on his right ulnar nerve wiped out his 2020 season.
He finally reached the majors in 2021 with Tampa Bay, though it was a brief look, as he allowed an 8.31 ERA in three games. After being traded to the then-Oakland Athletics, another elbow injury in April 2022 kept him out for most of that season.
The following year brought another chance. Honeywell signed a major league deal with the Padres in January 2023, then made those 36 appearances before being designated for assignment in August and claimed by the White Sox, where he posted an 11.12 ERA in four outings.
He then signed a minor league deal with the Pirates before the 2024 season, made two appearances, was designated for assignment again, and wound up with the Dodgers. That late-season run in Los Angeles ended with a World Series ring and a reminder that Honeywell can still be useful when he’s on the mound.
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