Kyle Stowers Matured His Mindset and Proceeded To Mash in Miami

Kyle Stowers came into the year on the heels of frustration. Shuttling between Baltimore and Triple-A Norfolk, the Stanford University product put up an uninspiring 84 wRC+ over 168 plate appearances with the Orioles across the 2022-2024 seasons. Moreover, he then scuffled in his first opportunity with the Marlins. Acquired by Miami along with Connor Norby in exchange for Trevor Rogers at last year’s trade deadline, Stowers proceeded to produce just a 57 wRC+ over 172 PAs. The 2019 second-round pick hadn’t exactly reached failed-prospect territory, but he was falling well short of his potential.

This year was a different story entirely. Finally finding his footing, the 27-year-old outfielder broke out while serving as the Marlins’ everyday left fielder. Prior to having his season end early due to a left oblique strain — he played his last game on August 15 — Stowers slugged 25 home runs while slashing .288/.368/.544 with a 149 wRC+ over 457 plate appearances. For good measure, he represented the Fish in the All-Star game, and was recently named a senior circuit Gold Glove finalist.

I asked the left-handed slugger about his breakout when the Marlins visited Boston in August, a series that coincided with his season-ending injury. Was it simply a matter of his getting an extended opportunity, or was there more to it?

“It’s been a number of things,” Sowers told me. “Getting an opportunity was one of them. Another is that I cleaned up some mechanical stuff and have been a lot better with my timing, especially against velocity. I’ve also been in a very clear place mentally. That’s been a big key. I haven’t put too much pressure on myself, or tried to be anything more than who I am.”

Going up and down from Triple-A to the majors when you’re not producing at the higher of those levels is often a recipe for pressing. Stowers admitted to having done so, especially toward the end of his Orioles tenure — and even upon his arrival in Miami.

“Yeah,” Stowers replied when I asked he pressed. “When I got traded over from Baltimore and got everyday playing time — even this past spring — the staff here was telling me that I was going to be a big part of the team. I still felt this sense of pressure. But then I kind of looked in the mirror and told myself that it would be OK if I didn’t have the success that I feel I should have. I realized that I was the one putting pressure on myself. I needed to find a way to just go out there and play.”

An improved mindset can work wonders, but at the same time, the physical aspect of hitting major league pitching presents a huge challenge. Stowers also mentioned that mechanical adjustments were behind his breakout performance, so I asked him just how much of a role those played. Which of the physical and mental changes ultimately made the bigger impact?

“That’s hard to say, exactly,” he said. “But I do think that the mental part of it allowed the mechanical changes to play out. There wasn’t the feeling that if I made a change it had to work that night. When I was making mechanical adjustments with the coaching staff, l was going out there thinking about my mechanics. I had to let that go, knowing that whatever was going to happen on the field was going to happen.”

Stowers doesn’t fault the hitting coaches he worked with in Baltimore for any of his struggles. From his perception, he was always on the same page with Ryan Fuller, Matt Borgschulte, and others he worked with. He felt that they all believed in him. As much as anything, it was a matter of “not having enough time on the field, opportunity-wise, to see that stuff manifest.”

Looking back at video, what Stowers sees is too many occasions where his “center of mass was dumping toward the plate,” as opposed to his being balanced in the box. He feels that was the main culprit when it came to inconsistent timing.

As he mentioned, the timing issues — particularly his inability to adequately handle high heat — were largely rectified this season.

“I’m being competitive to a lot more pitches in a lot more locations now,” Stowers said. “Prior to this year, I had a tough time with velocity at the top of the zone, and that’s something I’m more confident toward. That’s kind of been the biggest change from the sense of run value — the difference of run value against the fastball — from last year to this year.”

And again, a more-relaxed mindset has gone a way toward his not only building that confidence, but also his punishing pitchers. The degree Stowers earned from Stanford was in communications, but given his newfound perspective, it might well have been psychology.

“Early on, you have a tendency to believe that you have to be something different than you already are,” Stowers said of his maturation process. “Especially when you struggle in the big leagues. I actually had a conversation about that with our hitting coach, Pedro Guerrero, in the spring. He showed me a swing from 2023, in Triple-A, where I hit a home run. He said to me, ‘Go be that guy.’ It was very therapeutic, because it showed me that the swing has always been good enough to compete at this level. I just didn’t allow myself to believe that, because when you’re in the big leagues and struggling, you feel like you have to be someone different. You can lose sight of who you are and what helped you get there. So, while the mechanical adjustments have definitely helped, it’s really been the mental stuff more than anything.”