With Great Stowers Comes Great Responsibility
Kyle Stowers (MIA): 5-5, 3 HR, 4 R, 6 RBI.
Kyle Stowers‘ power was on full display on Sunday against his former team, with the All-Star crushing three home runs off Baltimore starter Brandon Young in his first three at-bats. Stowers also added two singles and finished the day with an incredible line of 5-5, 3 HR, 4 R, 6 RBI.
In 2024, the Orioles shipped him off to Miami last season, deeming him expendable, and he sputtered to a .186/.262/.295 finish with the Marlins over 50 games. 2025 is a different story. Stowers is having a solid season, hitting .293/.368/.543 with 19 homers, and he earned himself an All-Star selection for Miami. However, fantasy managers have been slower to adjust to Stowers’ heroics, rostering him in only 53% of Yahoo leagues and starting him in only 39% of leagues. Should the fantasy community be showing him some more love?
The answer here is simple: yes. With dark red all over his glorious Statcast page, Stowers’ under-the-hood numbers are excellent. He’s tattooing the ball with a 91st percentile HardHit rate (52.4%) and MaxEV (113.7 mph), and his 11.1% Barrel rate is appropriately 11th overall in the league. His 92nd percentile xSLG matches his actual SLG of .543, which means he should keep this up.
He does platoon and sits often against lefties, which is a knock against him. However, while this might give him fewer ABs than other full-time players, he’s taking advantage of his chances and creating quality ABs that can help fantasy managers. This is especially true for weekly leagues when Stowers is playing against mostly righties. PLV’s Process+ rolling chart is as glorious as his Statcast page. Feast your eyes on this:
Yup, this is a player that has broken out and should be owned and started at a much higher rate. Go grab him and enjoy the second half!
Let’s see how the other hitters did Sunday:
Julio Rodríguez (SEA): 2-3, 2B, HR, 3 R, 2 RBI, 2 BB, SB.
It was only yesterday when I wrote in Sunday’s Batters Box article that “the 24-year-old has just hit two homers in two games, and if anyone can turn around a season, it’s a talent like Julio.” Well, make it three games in a row with a homer, and another combo meal for Julio. It looks like Julio wants us to forget about his terrible first half, and I’m all for it.
Nick Kurtz (ATH): 2-4, 2B, HR, 2 R, 2 RBI.
Someone who hasn’t had a terrible first half in any sense of the word is AL Rookie of the Year candidate Nick Kurtz, who continues mashing the ball in Sacramento, crushing his 17th home run of the season. This was his fifth homer in his last nine games. The 22-year-old’s underlying stats are actually similar to Kyle Stowers (a.k.a. another dark red Statcast page). The biggest knock is his low 33.3% K rate, first percentile to be exact, but the upside is that Kurtz plays every day and crushes righties and lefites alike. He’s also five years younger than Stowers, and he’s a full buy in dynasty. He’s another fun “to the moon” Process+ chart to look at:
Tyler Soderstrom (ATH): 1-4, HR, R, 2 RBI.
After a hot start to the season, Kurtz’s teammate Tyler Soderstrom cooled off, but he’s back to hitting homers, launching his 18th of the season, his third in four games. Every young player goes through cold spells in their first full season in the league as pitchers figure out weaknesses and adjust. Soderstrom, however, seems to be coming out of it better than ever, especially in regard to his decision-making and contact ability. If he can get his power stroke back without selling out in the first two categories, he should have a strong second half. Get in there before the fantasy community realizes.
TJ Friedl (CIN): 2-3, HR, 3 R, RBI, BB.
Reds’ leadoff hitter TJ Friedl hit his ninth homer of the season Sunday, scoring three of the four Cincinnati runs in their 4-2 win over Colorado. Don’t be fooled by the power here, as 2023’s power surge is an outlier and not the main part of Friedl’s game. Friedl’s strengths are not striking out (16% K rate) and getting on base (11% walk rate), which are skills perfectly suited for a MLB leadoff hitter, but less so for fantasy, unless you’re in an OBP league (he’s batting .220 in July, while his OBP is .347). He is 61% rostered on Yahoo, which seems too high.
Kyle Manzardo (CLE): 1-4, HR, R, 3 RBI.
Manzardo hit his second HR in two days, this time a go-ahead three-run blast in the sixth inning, and finished off the first half of the season with 15 homers. The 24-year-old continues to be a platoon bat for the Guardians in his first full MLB season, but hasn’t shown the same growth in his game as other players written up in this article (see the other Kyle, for example). I don’t see a breakout coming in the second half. Buy low in dynasty, however.
Jackson Chourio (MIL): 1-4, HR, R, 3 RBI.
That’s 11 straight games with a hit for Jackson Chourio, and those hits usually come with some counting stats, including a three-run oppo taco on Sunday that got out in a hurry. The 21-year-old sophomore still needs to learn some patience at the plate to take that next step into super-stardom, but with 16 HR and 16 SB at the All-Star break, Chourio is well on his way to eclipsing his 21 HR/22 SB rookie campaign.
Dansby Swanson (CHC): 2-4, HR, R, 2 RBI.
Dansby Swanson broke out of a cold streak with his 16th homer of the season, putting the Cubs ahead of the Yankees for good. Swanson is your classic high-floor boring fantasy player that every team should have a couple of. Dansby, though, is bringing the power in 2025. His 47.3% HardHit rate and 90.4 mph average EV are the highest of his career and are a good reason why he’s sitting on 16 homers at the All-Star break this year, in contrast to the 16 homers he had over the entire 2024 season last year. His season high is 27 home runs in 2021, and it looks like he’s going to be pushing 30 this season.
Ceddanne Rafaela (BOS): 1-3, HR, R, 2 RBI.
Rafaela is on a heater, hitting another home run on Sunday, this one just clearing the Green Monster for his 14th on the season, and his fifth in eight games. Rafaela is in the midst of a breakout season, and not every fantasy manager is noticing or taking advantage, as he’s only 79% owned in Yahoo but slashing .271/.314/.483 with 14 homers and 13 steals. That’s solid production from your MI. In case you’re still not convinced, take a look at the difference in his Statcast info from 2024 and 2025, and you can see that he’s a completely different hitter than last season.
Evan Carter (TEX): 2-4, 2B, 3B, 2 R, RBI.
Evan Carter’s fall from grace after his initial call-up in 2023 has been well-documented, and a lot of it was injury-based. His 2025 season, however, seems to have settled somewhere between his amazing 2023 and dysmal 2024, with Carter quietly slashing .269/.351/.425 on the season. He’s also collected seven RBI in his last six games. All that is roster worthy, even in non-OBP leagues. Why then is he only 18% owned in Yahoo leagues? Give the man a chance at the end of your bench and see how his second half progresses.
