FSL notes: Honeywell off to sweet start

The Charlotte Stone Crabs, knowing they couldn't wait too long, gave out Brent Honeywell posters on April 15 at their third home game of the Florida State League season.

That it was also Super Heroes Night at Charlotte Sports Park was fitting.

Honeywell, who went undrafted out of high school three years ago, has been pitching as if possessed with special powers and isn't likely to stay with the Class A Advanced team all that much longer.

The 21-year-old right-hander hasn't allowed a run since the sixth inning on Opening Night and will take a scoreless streak of 12 innings into his fourth start of the season.

How dominant has the Tampa Bay Rays' No. 2 prospect been?

Opponents are batting .183 against Honeywell, and the No. 41 overall prospect on the MLB.com Top 100 list has 19 strikeouts to two walks.

That's why the posters were such a hit with young and old alike. They knew they could be getting a valuable piece of future memorabilia.

"I'd never had a poster before, so it was fun," Honeywell said. "I got to sign a lot of them for fans and I kept some. Maybe I'll get another one some day."

Honeywell is nothing if not confident, but few others would have thought even one poster giveaway was possible when his fastball sat well under 90 mph in high school pitching for his father at Franklin County High School in northeast Georgia.

"Nobody really looked at me," he said.

Honeywell headed off to Walters State Community College with a mission to add velocity and get noticed. He accomplished both.

"My fastball spiked eight miles per hour," said the eventual second-round choice of Tampa Bay in the 2014 Draft. "I knew I could throw harder. I just had to work at it."

Power running helped him getting stronger. But Honeywell found out the best way to add velocity was just to throw and throw.

"I would throw as hard as I could from 90 feet," he said. "Other pitchers didn't want to catch me, so I'd get a catcher. I put a lot of work into it. Nothing just happens."

Most discussions of Honeywell's repertoire start off with the mention of his screwball. The 6-foot-2 pitcher, though, doesn't single it out.

"It's just part of my arsenal," he said. "I've got a curve, a cutter, a change and I can run it up there pretty good. It's the fastball that sets everything up."

Honeywell's screwball, though, does make for an interesting storyline. He learned it from his father, who learned it from former Cy Young Award winner Mike Marshall while pitching for the former Los Angeles Dodgers relief ace at St. Leo College.

Actually, it all runs in the family. Marshall is a cousin of Brent Honeywell Sr., who went on the pitch for three seasons in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization.

"The screwball is a hard pitch to throw," said the Rays prospect. "But I learned it early and that's my normal arm slot."

Honeywell has got the best of most hitters no matter what pitch he calls on.

In his first full season in the Minors a year ago, Honeywell was a combined 9-6 with a 3.18 ERA for Class A Bowling Green and Charlotte, striking out 129 and walking only 27 in 130 1/3 innings.

Then Honeywell helped the Stone Crabs win the Florida State League Championship with two dominant postseason outings, giving up just six hits over 13 innings while striking out 12.

That would have been enough in most organizations for a jump up to Double-A to start this season. Not with the pitching-rich Rays, though.

"I'm confident where I'm eventually going to end up," said Honeywell, meaning the Majors. "So right now, I have to be patient. Obviously, I would have liked to be in Double-A. But there are a lot of good pitchers ahead of me and some good ones behind me, too.

"I'll keep working at it and my time will come. I'm not worried about that. This organization is loaded with pitching, and it's fun being part of that. It just makes it more exciting to think about what's ahead."

In brief

Second chance: Right-hander Kohl Stewart, the No. 4 overall pick in the 2013 Draft by Minnesota, had a mostly disappointing 2015 season with Fort Myers, but this year is starting much better. The Twins' No. 7 prospect threw six scoreless innings on April 14 in a victory over Brevard County and has a 1.50 ERA. Stewart averaged just 4.9 strikeouts per nine innings a year ago, but he fanned 13 over 12 innings in his first two starts this year. The 21-year-old former high school quarterback has also walked just two and opponents are batting only .122 against him.

Good start: St. Lucie shortstop Amed Rosario homered during a three-hit game on Opening Night after failing to go deep last season in 105 Florida State League games. The New York Mets' No. 3 prospect moved up to Double-A at the end of last season because of an injury, but the native of the Dominican Republic is starting this year back in Class A Advanced after hitting .257 for St. Lucie at age 19. Rosario, ranked No. 77 among MLB.com's Top 100 Prospects, was hitting .288 with three triples after going hitless just twice in his first 12 games.

Bad break: Right-hander Luke Weaver, the St. Louis Cardinals' No. 3 prospect, started the season on the Palm Beach disabled list and was expected to miss about a month because of a fractured left wrist suffered in an outfield collision with a teammate during a Spring Training workout. The first-round choice in the 2014 Draft out of Florida State University also got a late start last season, but recovered from some arm tightness to go 8-5 with a 1.62 ERA in 19 outings for Palm Beach. He had 88 strikeouts to 19 walks in 105 1/3 innings a year ago in the Florida State League. Weaver was expected to move up to Double-A Springfield before the injury.