The Kansas City Royals are expected to announce a major change to the outfield dimensions at Kaufmann Stadium on Tuesday that will thrill home run hitters in both dugouts, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports. Kansas City will be moving in a majority of their outfield fence by 10 feet, creating a more hitter-friendly environment at a ballpark that has long been one of the hardest to homer in.
Per Passan:
The decision, which the Royals are expected to announce Tuesday, comes after years of discussion by Kansas City’s front office about tinkering with dimensions and months after the organization commissioned its analytics department to find a palatable middle ground between the fly ball dead zone of Kauffman Stadium and other stadiums where home runs soar at extreme rates.
“We want a neutral ballpark where if you hit a ball well, it should be a home run,” Royals general manager J.J. Picollo told ESPN. “The second they start feeling like they can’t get the ball out of the ballpark, they start changing their swing. I watched it for years and years and years, and I just felt like this is the time to try to push it and see if everything we felt for however many years is accurate.”
So to set expectations, no one should expect dinger after dinger to fly out of the yard in Kansas City beginning this year. It sounds as though this was all done with a delicate algorithm to ensure the team can recruit both top-level hitting and pitching to its organization. Which is smart.
How much of a difference will this all make? That part is going to be fascinating to watch because even the best-designed models can leave room for some surprises. If nothing else there’s a whole fanbase walking around their places of work right now making conversation about there being some more big flies at the baseball field this summer.
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