Orioles prospect Kyle Stowers hoping to bounce back from ‘most challenging year of my career’

SARASOTA, Fla. — Kyle Stowers couldn’t catch a break last year.

The Orioles outfield prospect received limited playing time in the major leagues, was demoted to the minors twice, injured his shoulder in May and was hit in the face by a pitch in August.

“It felt like one thing after another last year,” he said.

Despite the difficulties, Stowers still displayed the powerful bat that made him an intriguing prospect in the first place, hitting 21 home runs in just 75 minor league games. Stowers is back in major league camp this spring in the thick of a competitive roster battle for a spot on the Orioles’ opening day roster.

As he enters into his fifth professional season, Stowers believes he’s better equipped to deal with the ups and downs of life in the majors after his experience last year.

“It was definitely the most challenging year of my career thus far, but it kind of puts me in a position where I feel like I can handle those challenges,” he said. “I think there’s a lot to be learned from that. I feel like I still have enough left in the tank.”

Stowers is among a contingent of Orioles prospects who have been somewhat forgotten — passed over — as others have soared. As Samuel Basallo, Coby Mayo and Chayce McDermott have emerged, the 26-year-old has fallen in prospect rankings, no longer squarely in fans’ hopes and dreams about a prospect-filled Orioles club. Entering 2022, Stowers was ranked by Baseball America as the organization’s seventh-best prospect. Going into 2023, he was ninth. Now, he’s 16th, as 13 players in the Orioles’ system have jumped Stowers on the publication’s list.

Mike Elias, the club’s vice president and general manager, has not forgotten about Stowers.

“This guy still has his whole career ahead of him,” Elias said during the winter meetings. “Huge power tool, he’s big and athletic, he plays the corners well, he can throw. There’s a lot there, and it’s kind of an under-the-radar person that could be a factor for us this season.

“The fact that we have a talent like that and he doesn’t get a lot of attention speaks to the depth we have in this system.”

Stowers, who debuted in 2022 and hit well late that year, made Baltimore’s opening day roster last year but was quickly optioned back to Triple-A. He returned in late April, played for two weeks and was optioned again as he struggled at the plate. Stowers was 2-for-30 with 12 strikeouts during his brief time in Baltimore last year.

“Those first couple days, it was kind of a tough pill to swallow,” Stowers said last year. “It was humbling.”

As he has throughout his minor league career, Stowers hit well on the farm before a shoulder injury kept him out for a month. He returned and continued hitting home runs at a Ruthian pace, parking one over the fence in 8.1% of his minor league at-bats. With Triple-A Norfolk, Stowers posted a .364 on-base percentage and .511 slugging percentage — slightly better than his career numbers in the minors.

His hot summer put him on Elias’ radar for a September call-up to be a left-handed bench bat, but the “terrible timing” of getting hit in the face by a pitch ended that possibility. Stowers said a fastball from a left-handed pitcher ran up and in, hitting him under his right eye on his nose.

“Of all the outcomes of getting hit in the face, a broken nose and a few stitches is probably a better one than most,” Stowers said. “That was just the last of a series of unfortunate events last year.”

He had his nose manually readjusted and missed almost three weeks of games before returning for the end of the season before the Tides went on a run to win the Triple-A championship.

When he looks back on his up-and-down 2023 campaign, Stowers is “proud about how I handled everything.”

“I guess what I mean by that is I had a lot of things not go my way — some injuries, going up and down. I’m just proud to say I handled it well and that I was the same guy the whole time,” he said. “With how the timing of everything went, it made it tough to get into a rhythm, so I think with what I was able to do on the field, I was proud of it. But I also felt like I didn’t play my best baseball.”

While Austin Hays, Cedric Mullins and Anthony Santander are the club’s top three outfielders, Elias said he still sees “a ton of playing time and a lot of at-bats” for outfielders outside that group. After Stowers hit a left-on-left double off the wall against southpaw Cionel Pérez during live batting practice Monday, manager Brandon Hyde said the 2019 second-round pick is “in the mix” to make the roster as a fourth or fifth outfielder.

“He’s got to compete,” Hyde said. “We’ve got a pretty talented group. … We’re looking for bench bats, guys who can platoon or guys that can step in and start.”

Last year wasn’t Stowers’ first time tripping over a hurdle only to get back up and keep moving. In his first year at Stanford, Stowers hit .103 in 39 at-bats before breaking out the following season. He hit .216 in his first stint of professional baseball, only to post a .898 OPS the next season. His ability to bounce back in the past, he said, is why he thinks he’ll do so again.

“I think growth comes from adversity and struggle,” Stowers said. “I look back at the times like my freshman year of college. I had a really bad year. It was the best thing for me because I learned how to struggle. I came into professional baseball in 2019 and I didn’t perform well and then in 2021 had a great year. Not that I’m saying this makes it a guarantee this year is going to be the best year of my career, but I just think when you have a year that I had last year, there’s a lot of perspective that comes into play.

“It gives you appreciation for the good times and just the ability to endure and to persist and to keep going.”