Rays Get Silver Lining on Terrible Brent Honeywell News

Tampa Bay Rays fans can breathe a modest sigh of relief.

On Saturday, the team received the devastating news that top prospect Brent Honeywell had fractured a bone in his right elbow during a scheduled bullpen session. While this is discouraging, there is at least one positive takeaway emerging from this episode.

Honeywell's surgery was a success, so his elbow has been repaired. Most importantly, there was no damage found to his UCL, which is absolutely huge. This is just about the best news you could hope to receive in this situation, as if he had fractured his elbow and damaged his UCL, one would question when he would be able to return from such an injury at all, even with Tommy John surgery.

The Rays have had seriously bad luck with Honeywell, as he already had a major setback in his rehabilitation process in April when he said he was experiencing forearm soreness.

Should all go well in his recovery, Honeywell should be able to resume a throwing program in January. Theoretically, he could wind up being ready for game action by May, or even the start of the 2020 season. However, Honeywell will likely need a string of minor league starts before the Rays consider promoting him to the big league club.