Thoughts On Stowers Demotion

On Sunday, the Baltimore Orioles made a surprising decision by sending Kyle Stowers back to AAA to make room for James McCann.  

The decision not only demoted a young player with under 150 MLB plate appearances, but also created a somewhat unusual roster situation by giving the Orioles three catchers. 

It was expected that the veteran McCann would appear on the roster once he was healthy, but it came as a surprise to seemingly everyone that Anthony Bemboom stayed on the roster as a third option at catcher. 

While the decision was surprising, it at least seems understandable given that Stowers was struggling for playing time to begin the season. In Baltimore’s first eight games with Stowers on the roster, he started just once while pinch-hitting during two other games. As such, a return to AAA should allow him to get regular playing time again. 

While it’s true that this decision will increase playing time for Stowers, it’s worth questioning how we arrived at this point less than two weeks into the season. 

Baltimore’s Opening Day roster included seven players with at least ten appearances in the outfield last year, so it seemed entirely possible there would be somewhat of a logjam for playing time. However, it didn’t seem like the outcome would be Stowers getting one start in eight games before being sent down. 

Stowers was briefly promoted in June last year due to Canada’s vaccine rules but was properly promoted for the rest of the season on August 19. From there, he appeared in the lineup 22 times in the final 44 games of 2022. He started eight games in left field, ten games in right field and served as the designated hitter four times while also making ten appearances off the bench.  

Across 90 plate appearances, Stowers put together a solid offensive effort with a .740 OPS. According to wRC+ from FanGraphs, he was an above-average hitter with a 111 wRC+. His wRC+ following his August promotion was also higher than the figures from Cedric Mullins (104) and Austin Hays (97) during the same span.  

Stowers was hardly flawless with a strikeout rate of 27.8 percent that led everyone on the team with at least 90 PAs, but he still managed to be a useful hitter as a rookie who wasn’t consistently starting.  

The respectable major league production for Stowers also came after a pretty thorough amount of time in AAA. The 2019 draft pick had precisely 500 plate appearances with the Norfolk Tides across 2021 and 2022, putting together a .863 OPS that included 22 homers in 117 games, a 162-game pace of 30 homers.  

Stowers provided a solid first impression in the majors after a very strong tenure in AAA that seemed to guarantee remaining on the major league roster in 2023, but here we are. 

It’s currently unknown how long Stowers will remain in AAA, but either way, it’s hard to consider the playing time argument anything but puzzling.  

The group of outfielders that were on the roster when Stowers got promoted in August are virtually identical to the group of outfielders currently on the roster, but suddenly there’s an issue for playing time?  

The only addition to this year’s roster with outfield experience is Adam Frazier, but he’s a natural second baseman who has started in the outfield only once in the first 12 games. The 2022 Orioles found room for Stowers in the lineup 50 percent of the time after his August promotion, so it’s odd this is now an issue in 2023.

It’s also worth noting that it’s hard to find anything from spring training that inspired a sudden change of heart for Stowers. His spring OPS was .735, which was virtually identical to his production after being promoted in August. Meanwhile, fellow outfielder Ryan McKenna remains on the roster with a .522 OPS in the spring.  

These small samples don’t necessarily mean McKenna should’ve been sent down instead, but it does prove that spring training was most likely not a factor here. 

The demotion of Stowers would also seem to indicate that there’s a decent chance he’ll get traded. The Orioles might not think there’s room for him to start regularly, but I’m confident there should be at least a few teams in the middle of a rebuild who’d happily take a corner outfielder with decent power and several years of control. 

Stowers would also seem expendable as a young outfielder in the organization because of Colton Cowser and Heston Kjerstad. It’s quite likely the team views that duo as having brighter futures than Stowers, making it easier for the team to move on from Stowers. 

They already moved Darell Hernaiz this offseason because of other infield prospects, so it doesn’t seem particularly unlikely that something similar could happen to Stowers. 

Regardless of whether it’s in Baltimore or somewhere else, Stowers has proven he’s a young player worthy of getting more reps in the majors. Either the Orioles should find room for him like they did last year, or consider moving him to an organization with less competition for outfield spots.