J.J. Picollo’s remarks on Royals’ stadium alterations show how complex issue truly is

The Kansas City Royals made waves across the baseball world on Tuesday after announcing that they’d be changing the dimensions at Kauffman Stadium by moving in a majority of the walls ahead of the 2026 season.

At first glance, there’s definitely some obvious pros to be had with such alterations, including how it will all but surely affect their power production moving forward, specifically when it comes to home runs.

However, as names like Vinnie Pasquantino pointed out, the unique dimensions that made Kauffman Stadium both a hitter-friendly and pitcher-friendly ballpark at the same time are suddenly eliminated. Other extra base hits (doubles and triples) could be made more obsolete while pitchers now have to be more cautious of the surrendering flyballs with home runs now easier to hit.

And after the team officially announced the plans, GM J.J. Picollo spoke to the media and offered a unique, and frankly somewhat contradicting example, of one of the key instances that came to mind when determining whether to make this decision.

J.J. Picollo’s example of why Royals’ stadium alterations are necessary makes decision seem even more complicated

The 2014 season was a dream year for the Royals (until it wasn’t), making their first postseason appearance since 1985 and miraculously progressing all the way back to the World Series before a painful Game 7 loss to the San Francisco Giants (yes, I still have nightmares of Madison Bumgarner running out the bullpen to shut the Royals down for 5.0 straight innings).

What made it such an odds-defying feat was the fact that the Royals truly had no business being their in the first place, as it took a jaw-dropping late-game, extra innings comeback against the Oakland Athletics in the one-and-done Wild Card game to even have a shot of getting to within a game of championship glory.

This is the game where Picollo looked back and saw what he felt was a prime example of why he felt the walls needed to be brought in.

“The one that first came to mind, I’m not saying it’s the best example because there’s several examples, but the ball [Eric] Hosmer hit in the Wild Card game that the two outfielders for the A’s collided, that’s a homer,” Picollo said. “That’s not a triple, that’s a homer now.”

This of course was the hit that changed everything and truly was they most important hit to complete the comeback.

Down 8-7 with one out in the 12th inning, Hosmer stepped to the plate and hit a 2-2 offering to left center field where the outfielders collided trying to make the catch on the warning track and Hosmer ended up on third.

He’d eventually come around to score on a Christian Colon game-tying single before Salvador Perez lined a base hit of his own with two outs to walk Oakland off and move Kansas City on to Anaheim for the ALDS.

A homer would’ve helped there, no doubt. However, the fact that Hosmer was able to put someone on base for Colon started the rally that would change the course of history.

If that balls gone, suddenly the Royals are starting from scratch again looking for the winning run, and there’s no guarantee they’d find that in the 12th, if at all.

Kauffman Stadium may’ve been a bit of nightmare to squeak out cheap homers, but according to Statcast Park Factors it still ranked as the sixth best ballpark for hitters last season, thanks to it’s top five standing in doubles and top 10 standing in singles. Simply put, balls found space in that vast outfield perimeter.

An uptick in homers certainly isn’t a bad thing to have and there’s plenty of instances where a homer would have changed a lot for this team in certain scenarios.

However, converting Kauffman Stadium to a more neutral environment isn’t a completely black and white issue. Everything comes at a cost and while they may be setting themselves up for more long balls at home, rallies induced by extra base hits will surely take a hit – going against the age old mantra the Royals have adopted of keeping the line moving.