Kris

Honel

Honel is now 4-2 with a 2.57 ERA, and leads the Carolina League with 37 strikeouts.

Cooper is the only player here with any major league experience. Honel, a 2001 first-round pick, likely will begin the year at Single-A Winston-Salem.

Honel left a start last week at Double-A. He’s been cleared to begin throwing again.

It’s been a lost year for Honel, who has been troubled by a sore elbow. If he had stayed healthy, he probably would have gotten to Chicago by now.

The White Sox should have kept Ryan Wing over Smith, Lopez and Reynoso, but he’s gone to the Rangers now. Honel had to be kept even though he pitched just 6 1/3 IP last season due to elbow problems.

Honel, the team’s top pitching prospect a year ago, had had elbow problems and is now throwing in just the mid-80s. It’s still mildly surprising some team didn’t take a chance on him. The Royals have worse bets on their 40-man roster, and the Indians would have been better off taking a chance on his velocity coming back than on Jose Diaz ever finding home plate.

A first rounder in 2001 who developed into one of the game’s better pitching prospects, Honel began having arm problems in 2004 and missed all of last season following Tommy John surgery. He was 2-2 with a 5.79 ERA at Double-A.

Honel retired at the end of July, but obviously that didn’t take. The 2001 first-round pick has battled arm problems for three years and is a long shot to make it as a major league reliever.

Honel, a 2001 first-round pick and the White Sox’s top pitching prospect, will undergo an MRI today. “The last three fastballs I threw I felt a sharp pain in the back of my elbow,” Honel said. “I called the trainer out and told him it was hurting.”

Honel, a 2001 first-round pick, initially injured his elbow in early 2004 and hadn’t been the same sense. He eventually underwent surgery at the end of 2005. Time will tell if he can reemerge as a prospect at age 24, but Monday’s performance was a good start.