MIAMI, FL—”At the end of spring training, I was playing pretty poorly, and I was actually nervous about making the team.”
This was Kyle Stowers‘ mindset amid a spring training that saw him hit .175 with a .540 OPS following an introduction to Miami in 2024 that saw him hit .186 with a 35% strikeout rate. “I’m panicking because I’m doing so much good in the cage and it hasn’t shown any on the field yet,” he recalls telling Marlins assistant coach Derek Shomon.
Stowers, Shomon and hitting coach Pedro Guerrero had a 30-minute conversation that reassured the 27-year-old outfielder he was on the right track.
“To be able to communicate, to be vulnerable to those guys, and to then know they still believed in and had high hopes for me, I genuinely think that’s something worth noting as a key point for me.”
On Sunday, less than four months after that skin-shedding conversation, Major League Baseball announced that Stowers had been named to the 2025 National League All-Star roster as the Marlins’ lone representative. In 84 games this season, he has hit .280/.352/.514/.866 with a team leading 16 home runs and 46 RBI.
“It”s pretty surreal to be honest,” said a choked-up Stowers. “I’ll be honest, there’s always been a part of me that’s believed I had this capability. I know there’s been a group in my community that has believed the same thing. My appreciation goes out to those people who who always believed in me, and then first and foremost, God. I honestly feel like I’ve been leaning on him a lot this year and the doors that he’s opened up I didn’t expect to be in this position in spring training, so this is very special to me.”
Stowers was selected by the Baltimore Orioles in Competitive Balance Round B of the 2019 MLB Draft. The Stanford alum was ranked as high as eighth on MLB Pipeline’s Orioles top 30 prospects list.
In 2022, the Orioles gave Stowers his initial call-up to the majors. He played in 34 games and posted a 107 wRC+ (100 represents league average). In 2023, Stowers would be sent up and down from Triple-A, only playing 14 games in Baltimore, posting a -37 wRC+. He played in 19 more games with the 2024 O’s, but he still wasn’t a mainstay on the big league roster and was trending toward being labeled a “Quad-A player.”
Stowers was acquired by the Fish last July along with Connor Norby in exchange for lefty Trevor Rogers. Following the trade, he was playing almost every day in MLB, but struggled.
“With how things kind of unfolded right when I got here, I obviously didn’t play the baseball that I would have liked to last year, but with that being said, within the struggles, there’s just so many learning opportunities. Playing so poorly for a stretch of time forced me to kind of lower my expectations, do less, lower the bar and take one step at a time.”
It was a shock to many that Stowers made the Opening Day roster, but he immediately justified the decision by hitting a walk-off RBI single. He continued to produce throughout the months of March and April, slashing .323/.396/.510/.907 with four home runs and 19 RBI.
For his performance from April 28-May 4, Stowers was named National League Player of the Week, slashing .421/.421/1.105/1.526 (8-for-19) with four home runs and 10 RBI. He had a four-hit game and two multi-homer games. His 0.91 win probability added led the NL, per FanGraphs. By this point, it felt like a lock—barring injury—that he would be the Marlins All-Star representative.
Stowers’ rough stretch of the season came in the middle of May, bleeding into early June. He went From May 16 through June 21 without hitting a home run. During that period, he slashed .228/.291/.297/.588 with 30 strikeouts against only seven walks. His playing time was also limited a bit by hand soreness, though he did not go on the injured list at any point.
Stowers snapped out of his homerless drought on April 22 against the Atlanta Braves. His power has fully returned since then and the Marlins have caught fire with a 10-3 record.
Stowers has significantly improved upon his strikeout rate, which is now down to a career-low 28.9%. He isn’t pounding the ball into the ground as much as in years past, lowering his ground ball rate from 49.6% in 2024 to 40.6% this season. He’s also shown an ability to hit left-handed pitching. In 72 plate appearances, he is slashing .313/.375/.406/.781 with 10 RBI.
The Marlins will head to Cincinnati to take on the Reds in a four-game set and then finish the first half of the season at Camden Yards, taking on Stowers’ former club, the Orioles. Stowers and Marlins manager Clayton McCullough will take a private jet to Atlanta from there. The Midsummer Classic will take place on Tuesday, July 15 at 8:00 pm.