Top Rays prospect Brent Honeywell showed off his nasty screwball in the 2017 Futures Game
According to MLB Pipeline, right-hander Brent Honeywell is the No. 2 prospect in the Rays' system and the No. 22 prospect in all of baseball. He boasts above-average command, a plus changeup and a fastball that can get up into the mid-90s.
But there's another reason that Honeywell has done nothing but climb up prospect rankings since Tampa Bay drafted him in the second round out of Tennessee's Walters State Community College in 2014: He's one of the last screwballers in professional baseball.
Honeywell learned the pitch as a kid (his father's cousin is Mike Marshall, the righty who rode a screwball all the way to the 1974 NL Cy Young Award with the Dodgers) and it's no mere novelty act: MLB Pipeline gave it a 65 grade on the 20-80 scouting scale. But don't take our word for it -- just check out the screwball he broke off during the 2017 SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game:
Honeywell pitched two scoreless innings while striking out four, earning MVP honors for Team USA -- not surprising, with stuff like that. But, as he explained to MLB Network after his outing, he tries to pick and choose his spots with his unique pitch:
Before his dominance in the Futures Game, Honeywell spoke with Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman of the Cespedes Family BBQ about golf, chess, and hunting -- one of Honeywell's favorite pastimes:
