Jase

Bowen

The hit was a 69-mph flare that dropped in front of center fielder Justin Crawford. That came in his third at-bat. He got up once more with the Padres down one run and two outs in the ninth, but he flailed away at three straight sweepers out of the zone from Jhoan Duran to end the game. Stranger things have happened, but Bowen seems like a long shot to be of use in shallow leagues.

Bowen is in left field and hitting seventh in his big-league debut against the Phillies on Tuesday night. The 25-year-old outfielder gets the call to replace an injured Ramón Laureano (hip) on San Diego’s roster after hitting .292/.362/.600 with 13 homers and seven steals across 49 games in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League this season. There’s some intrigue here in extremely deep mixed leagues, but he’ll need to show he can make enough contact to keep his head above water in the majors.

No word yet on who he is replacing, but it could be Bryce Johnson, unless maybe someone is IL-bound. Bowen, 25, is hitting .292/.362/.600 with 13 homers and seven steals for Triple-A El Paso in his first year in the Padres organization. While the power and speed numbers are intriguing, he also has a 15.2 percent swinging strike rate and just a 79 percent zone contact rate at Triple-A. Both are those are well below average, which creates some concerns around his contact ability at the big league level.

Miranda hit .304/.373/.522 this spring, but his fate was sealed when the Padres committed to Ty France as a bench guy. Sears probably would have had a rotation spot with a strong spring, but he turned in an 8.44 ERA in his three starts. If the Padres had it to do over again, they probably would have non-tendered him in November instead of retaining him for $2.75 million.

The 25-year-old outfielder spent the first seven years of his minor league career in the Pirates’ organization. In 2025, Bowen slashed .272/.353/.449 with nine homers, 37 RBI and 20 stolen bases in 366 plate appearances across four minor league levels.

Bowen’s 40 total bases currently leads all batters in the AFL and is hitting .359/.423/.625 with three homers and two stolen bases. Bowen, the Pirates 11th round draft pick in 2019, will need to be added to the Pirates’ 40-man roster this winter to protect him from the Rule 5 draft. On the season, the 23-year-old hit .255/.327/.467 with 26 stolen bases and 23 home runs across High-A Greensboro and Double-A Altoona. If he continues his hot-hitting ways in the desert, he will likely secure a precious spot on Pittsburgh’s 40-man roster.

Bowen is impressing people as one of the top-performing hitters in the AFL. He’s hitting .394 with a 1.065 OPS so far with a 90.6 mph average exit velocity and 15 base hits. This season, Bowen hit 23 home runs and stole 26 bases between High-A and Double-A while registering 95 RBI and 86 runs scored, so he could work his way into the conversation in Pittsburgh sooner rather than later.