Welcome to Week 18 of our Patience or Panic series!
Kyle Manzardo, 1B, Cleveland Guardians
Last season, it seemed like the Cleveland Guardians got Kyle Manzardo in a sweetheart deal. The Guardians acquired Manzardo from the Tampa Bay Rays in 2023 straight-up for Aaron Civale. Civale was shipped off to the Brewers in July of 2024 after a disastrous stint in Tampa Bay. Manzardo, on the other hand, raked. He posted a .945 OPS with 20 home runs in Triple-A in 2024 and was set for a regular MLB role in 2025.
That 2025 role came for Manzardo and saw a superb return: A .234/.313/.455 slash, 27 home runs, 19 doubles, 70 RBIs, a .768 OPS and 113 wRC+. The then-24-year-old solidified himself as Cleveland’s long-term answer at first with plenty of upside still ahead of him. He had power to grow into, bat-to-ball abilities to find, and a BB% to be proud of. Cleveland’s shot call worked in spades.
At least it did then. 2026 has seen little return on Cleveland’s initial investment. Through 95 games, Manzardo’s hit .209/.298/.358 with just 11 home runs, 32 RBIs, a .656 OPS, and an 88 wRC+. Somehow, those numbers seem great in comparison to Manzardo’s last month of play. Over his last 22 games, he’s hitting .134/.205/.254 with a .459 OPS. In fact, Manzardo’s .429 July OPS is second-worst in all of baseball, trailing only Colt Emerson’s .373 mark. He’s nobody’s sweetheart right now. The why is understandable. The how? Not so much.
Finding that how demands a concession. Manzardo is, as he’s always been, a power-first kind of hitter. He hit well in the minors, yes, but his .544 slug over four seasons was the attraction. As was his 27 home runs a season ago. He’ll never hit for great average. He needn’t. So long as he’s driving the ball far and deep, and doesn’t need to happen at elite rates. Because if Manzardo is going to recapture Cleveland’s hearts, it’s going to be through longballs and barrels.
Sadly, Manzardo isn’t having much luck in that department. His HR% has dropped from 5.1% to 3.3% in 2026. He’s not doing the first. Nor is he doing the second, with a Barrel% in similar decline. Nor is he checking out in other areas. Manzardo ranks 125th out of 147 qualified hitters this season in slugging percentage. In ISO, he ranks 97th. While an improvement, it still has him nearly in the back third of all players. Instead of going deep, he’s striking out, seeing his K% rise from 25.4% to 31.7%. The latter now ranks Manzardo in the seventh percentile of all players.
There’s not one cause at work here. Manzardo’s struck out 52 times on fastballs, 37 times on breaking balls, and 16 times on offspeed. Like a lothario, he’s susceptible to everything. And while he can console himself with a .261 average on all fastballs, he can’t in other departments. Against breakers, he’s hitting .159. Against offspeed pitches, he’s hitting .132. This is where average does matter, even for a guy like Manzardo. See, he can survive a .234 average so long as he’s making just enough contact. But when he’s hardly making any at all on anything?
In particular, he’s being torn apart by sliders and changeups. Manzardo is one of the worst hitters against the former. His .122 average is seventh-worst in baseball, his 48.8 Whiff% is sixth, and his 41.7 K% is 13th. He’s near defenseless. While he fares a little better against changeups, hitting .135, he has no juice against them, with a .135 slug. Manzardo, in comparison, is at least touting a .268 slug on all sliders. He can do something to them. He can’t do and hasn’t done anything against changeups.
All of this is troubling. The lack of power, the increasing strikeouts, the inability to do anything against two-thirds of all pitches. Is this all unforeseen? Somewhat. Manzardo could hit sliders last season. This is a new trend, whereas his lack of contact on the whole could’ve been predicted given that Manzardo had .224 xBA last season, and a .196 xBA the season before that. Nothing here exactly warms the heart.
One possible cause for that is Manzardo’s launch angle. In 2025, he finished in the 76th percentile in LA Sweet-Spot%. He could connect in the right spot often enough, albeit not as much as anyone would like. This year, Manzardo’s in the 44th percentile. He’s not where he needs to be with his bat. Two of a thousand things could have something to do with that: Bat speed and stance changes.
Manzardo’s off just a hair in each. His bat speed is down from 70.6 MPH to 69.8 MPH. The latter now has him in the 17th percentile. And as for his stance, Manzardo’s sitting a touch deeper in the box and has opened up his swing a bit more. As a possible result, he’s intercepting pitches 11.7 inches in front of the plate rather than intercepting them at last year’s 10.9. He’s slower and often early to the ball.
The Verdict: It’s ugly. Manzardo has the proverbial face only few can love. But if you do, buy. Manzardo’s stock will never be lower. Yet he’s 26, carries a strong pedigree, and still plays for one of the more competent organizations in baseball. If anyone might fix him, it’s Cleveland.
Kyle Stowers, OF, Miami Marlins
Kyle Stowers and Kyle Manzardo have a lot more in common than you’d think. Both named Kyle, both traded from their original analytics-focused organization to another, both got off to strong starts with their new clubs, and both are now the subject of our central question. Move aside Danny Devito and Arnold Schwarzenegger. These are the Twins.
That said, they’re not fraternal. Where Manzardo played solidly in his rookie campaign, Stowers played out of his mind. In 117 games, Stowers hit .288/.368/.544 with 25 home runs, 73 RBIs, a .912 OPS and a 149 wRC+. Stowers was a much-deserved All-Star. And for added context, that .912 OPS would’ve ranked as the fourth-best in the NL last season had Stowers enough ABs to qualify. He was cruising his enemies, seeing them driven before him, and hearing the lamentation of their fans.
Nowadays, though, Stowers hears only the lamentation of his own fans. Through 80 games, the 28-year-old is hitting .234/.315/.441 with a .756 OPS and a 100 wRC+. He’s still hitting tanks, tallying 12 homers on the season, and collecting clutch hits, with 44 RBIs, but he’s not the All-Star, nor the destroyer he was a season ago.
To some extent, that makes this easy. There’s no need to panic about Stowers. He’s still good. He’s playing fine, strong baseball. He hasn’t been replaced in Miami’s hierarchy. And unlike his fellow Kyle, he can somewhat default his woes to a right hamstring strain that sidelined him until April. The point is, Stowers is no true lie.
His advanced data speaks to this doubly so. Stowers is in the 86th percentile in Average Exit Velocity, the 69th in Barrel%, the 97th in Hard-Hit%, and the 86th in Bat Speed. He’s elite where it counts. In that way, he carries shades of Pete Crow-Armstrong’s earlier struggles this season. All the data suggests better fortune than what’s actually followed. All he needs to do is stay the course… kind of.
For as much as there is to like about Stowers, there are some problems that can’t be erased like some bad Martian memory.
Arguably the biggest is a contradiction. For as much as some data supports Stowers, others detest him. For instance, Stowers’s expected numbers are far, far worse than they were a year ago. Then, Stowers sat in the 94th and 95th percentile in xwOBA and xSLG and the 75th in xBA. It reaffirmed what he saw. This season, it doubts what we want to believe. Stowers is in the 45th and 56th percentile in xwOBA and xSLG. Likewise, he’s in the 22nd percentile in xBA. This cannot be ignored.
Nor can some other woes. Stowers is striking out at an absurd rate, wearing a 32.6 K%. That’s fourth-highest in baseball, trailing only Spencer Torkelson, Jorge Soler, and another Kyle, Kyle Schwarber. And one of these names is not like the others. The only reason this isn’t a career-worst is due to his earlier struggles. In 2023 and 2024, he had a 36.4 K% and a 35.4 K%. He reined in his free swinging last season. Now, it’s loose.
Here, Stowers and Manzard pair up again. Because like his fellow Kyle, Stowers is prey to almost everything. He has a K% of at least 30% on six of eight pitches: Four-seam fastballs, sliders, changeups, curveballs, sweepers, and splitters. He has a Whiff% of at least 30% on seven of eight pitches seen, swinging through cutters but rarely for strike three. Regardless, almost every pitch centers three red dots on his forehead and blows him away.
That is, well, an issue. As is the fact that cutters are the only pitch Stowers is consistently hitting. Yet he’s seeing the pitch 7.5%. The rest of the time he’s languishing against everything else. Seriously. Stowers is hitting .223 against fastballs, .205 against sliders, .233 against changeups, .222 against sinkers, .240 against curveballs, and .150 against sweepers.
All of this calls something into question. Stowers can be a good hitter. He is one right now. But can he be a great hitter? Can he consistently control his bat and be the all-around player he was before? Or has that Stowers been terminated and left a swing-happy, power-and-little-else copy in his place?
The Verdict: Get on board now or not at all. Stowers will likely do one of two things: take off or stay exactly where he is. If you want in, get in. If not, then hasta la vista, baby.
Jorge Soler, DH, Los Angeles Angels
Jorge Soler has one of the most memorable home runs in recent World Series history. Let’s take you back. It’s 2021. Atlanta is in Houston, and just one win away from lifting the championship. There are two on, two outs, and Soler’s in a 2-2 count. Astros pitcher Luis García drops a looping ball into the zone, and Soler sends it to the sun. He leans back, drops his bat, and taps his chest as the ball goes 446 feet and nearly clears the train tracks.
This one hit lives in immortality. Partly for its aura, and partly because it is statistically the most important play in the entire 2021 World Series. So much so that Soler wins World Series MVP.
It’s from those heights that Soler’s disappeared. In the years since, he’s bounced from Miami, San Francisco, Atlanta again, where he raked, and then to Los Angeles. Through two seasons with the Halos, Soler’s played just 163 games and hit .208 with a .667 OPS. He’s gone from immortal to irrelevant.
Rumors suggest Soler could be on the move at the upcoming trade deadline. And should he be moved, he might get another crack at a championship and something greater than himself. But does he have anything left in the tank? Is there enough in his now 34-year-old bat to make history once more?
The numbers say no. That there’s nothing. Frankly, they’re hard to argue with. Soler is hitting .202/.288/.374 with just 12 home runs, a .662 OPS, and an 82 wRC+. That OPS ranks 132nd out of 155 players, and that wRC+ ranks 134th. His -0.7 fWAR is 145th. There is a legitimate case to be made is the least valuable player in baseball. He can’t defend. He has no speed. He cannot hit and hasn’t in some time. What does he do?
A rich man needs it, a poor man has it, and Soler’s value is this. What is it? Nothing.
There are no expected numbers to support him. He is not generating value with his eye. Almost every advanced metric doesn’t favor him. Oh, and he’s striking and whiffing out almost more than anyone.
All that said, there are a few strands to cling to. Soler’s Barrel% is strong, standing in the 73rd percentile. His HardHit% is weaker, but still above average and in the 62nd percentile. His LA Sweet-Spot% is at its highest mark since 2023, to boot. And, maybe most importantly, Soler’s bat can still catch up. Despite his age and lack of general ability, it ranks in the 84th percentile.
Put all this together. Above-average barrel numbers, just above-average HardHit% and LA Sweet-Spot%, and flirting with elite bat speed. For some teams, that along with his past pedigree might be enough.
The Verdict: If the phrase “caveat emptor” were personified, it’d look a lot like Soler. This advice goes to teams real and imagined.
