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The Kansas City Royals are moving in fences at Kauffman Stadium in an effort to make it a more hitter-friendly ballpark, the team announced on Tuesday (January 13) via MLB.com.
Both the left- and right-field walls will be moved in nine to 10 feet, beginning close to the foul poles and tapering toward center field, which will stay at 410 feet from home plate, while the wall height will be lowered from 10 feet to 8 1/2 feet in most places. The change will also add to Kauffman Stadium's total capacity, with an additional 150 seats in left field and 80 drink-rail seats being implemented.
A team-provided diagram showed the left- and right-field corners at 347 and 344 feet, respectively, nine feet shorter than their current dimensions. The left and right field walls will also be nine feet closer at 364 feet, while the left-center and right-center fields will be 10 feet closer at 379 feet.
“There’s a lot of different things that go into it,” said Royals general manager J.J. Picollo. “During the course of the season, we just started doing some research, running some numbers and trying to figure out how much this really impacts our offense. Consequently, how would it affect our pitching staff? Ultimately, we concluded that we would be a better team offensively. With our current pitching staff, the changes in the dimensions wouldn’t impact [pitching] negatively as much as it impacts our offense positively.”
Kauffman Stadium is already considered to be an above-average offensive park because of its massive outfield, which promotes doubles and triples, but has suppressed home runs, which has led to hitters changing their approaches in road games. The Royals had previously moved their fences in 10 feet between 1995 and 2003, which saw a spike in home run totals, before returning to their original dimensions in 2004.