Norby focused on improving swing to be a big part of Marlins' '26 run

It was third baseman Connor Norby -- not outfielder Kyle Stowers -- many would’ve predicted as the Marlins’ 2025 breakout candidate based on their brief introduction to the organization in ‘24.

Things look quite different going into 2026.

Norby will be battling for a job after three separate injured list stints in 2025 played a role in limiting him to just 88 games and a .689 OPS. A left oblique strain on the second-to-last day of Spring Training in addition to left hamate bone surgery and a left quad strain kept Norby off the field for much of ‘25. Stowers, meanwhile, quickly erased a horrid camp by becoming the Opening Day walk-off hero, blossoming into a first-time All-Star and receiving an extension offer.

Miami’s roster is so inexperienced that the concept of a bounceback season seems ludicrous. But if we’re going off 2025 results and expectations, Norby would be a prime candidate.

“Just the choppiness of his season and being hurt in Spring Training, and then coming back and getting hurt again,” manager Clayton McCullough said. “We haven't seen the Norby that we all know that he's capable of. … Hopefully he's healthy and able to go out there and hit like he always has and continue to get better defensively.”

The 25-year-old Norby is a tinkerer. He spent all of 2025 searching for his swing, finally finding something that worked during the last month of the season. In 14 games in September, Norby hit .275/.315/.471 with four doubles, two homers and five RBIs. On the flip side, he struck out 16 times and walked just twice.

Norby is still tinkering this offseason, texting with hitting coach Pedro Guerrero on a daily basis and meeting the new assistant hitting coaches over FaceTime. Early on, he spent three to four days a week lifting, hitting, throwing and fielding to get back into the swing of things. Once Christmas rolled around, Norby only gave himself Sundays off to watch his Minnesota Vikings play.

The toe tap is staying, and so is the swing. Norby is working on more rotation. The idea is if he rotates faster, he will have more time to make better swing decisions and clean up his bat path.

“I usually start hitting about Thanksgiving, but I was itching to get back, and I started probably two weeks before that -- so beginning of November,” Norby said. “I've been hitting since then, and that's all I feel like I've been doing. I feel really good right now, this time of the year, still have roughly two months until camp, but I feel like I'm in a really good spot right now.”

Over the offseason, the Marlins have also expressed a desire to be flexible with their roster makeup to maximize their lineup production while also exhibiting even more defensive versatility. The corner-infield spots are seen as areas for improvement after their third basemen (.672 OPS, 19th in MLB) and first basemen (.663 OPS, fourth worst in MLB) lacked production.

So what does that mean for Norby?

When the Marlins acquired Norby with Stowers in the Trevor Rogers trade, they converted the second baseman/outfielder to third without any prior experience. He got a crash course at the position at the Triple-A level before being recalled soon after to the Major League club.

Based on what Miami has said publicly, Norby could return to his roots. In December, McCullough announced that Norby could see action in the outfield this spring.

“’Go dominate third base this offseason,’” McCullough told Norby. “‘You're going to come into Spring Training to compete for the third-base spot, and the fact that you played the outfield is not foreign to you. I don't want you to be caught off guard.’”

Norby, who bought into the organization’s plan upon his arrival, understands that Miami would like to keep his right-handed bat in the lineup on a left-handed-heavy roster.

If that means Norby heads to a corner-outfield spot on occasion, so be it. So long as he is playing every day. Norby plans to arrive at big league camp early and work with outfield coach Blake Lalli when he’s not getting ground balls at the hot corner.

“I know it's a big year for me,” Norby said. “It's a big year for us as a team. We made some noise last year, and we got a lot of guys that either want to take that next step from what they took last year, or want to, in a sense, bounce back and be the person and player that we know that, like for me, that I am, and that other guys are. I know that it's going to be an exciting 2026 for the Marlins.”