{"id":2234623,"date":"2026-01-14T16:38:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T16:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2234623"},"modified":"2026-01-14T16:38:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T16:38:26","slug":"why-the-royals-moving-in-their-fences-fits-current-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/why-the-royals-moving-in-their-fences-fits-current-roster\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Royals moving in their fences fits current roster"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The wait for a new Royals ballpark plan perseveres.<\/p>\n

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But the plan for a different<\/i> ballpark? It\u2019s here.<\/p>\n

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The Royals announced Tuesday that they will bring in the Kauffman Stadium fences<\/a> by about eight to 10 feet \u2014 other than straightaway center \u2014 in time for Opening Day in late March.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a glimpse, if not a trial run, into what a new stadium might entail. Eventually.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s an even better glimpse into the team they might put in a new ballpark \u2014 and the team they already have.<\/p>\n

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There\u2019s a compelling turn-over-every-leaf element to the forthcoming change. The Royals didn\u2019t arrive here on a whim, nor to appease the complaints of the hitters who have more than a time or two rushed to their phones after a game to study their own launch angles and exit velocities, trying to compute how in the world a fly ball didn\u2019t leave the yard.<\/p>\n

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This was a months-long, even years-long, process. Daniel Mack, the team\u2019s assistant general manager for research and development, talked Tuesday about how wind<\/i> played into the placement of the fence. If you attended the news conference, you walked away saying, they thought of everything.<\/i><\/p>\n

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But there\u2019s a far more compelling output from the data:<\/p>\n

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When the Royals spin the wheels on their internal projections, it shows that moving in the fences averages to about 1.5 more wins in 2026. In a search for every competitive advantage, the Royals believe they found one in changing their stadium dimensions.<\/p>\n

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How?<\/p>\n

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Well, their pitchers induce soft contact at a higher rate (17.3%) than any team in baseball and hard contact at the seventh-lowest rate (31.7%) in the league. The pitching staff will suffer some<\/i> consequences, in other words, but not as much as their hitters will benefit, and their data shows star shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. will benefit as much as anyone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen we looked at similar ballparks with our current pitching staff, the results are still very good in what would be similar to the new Kauffman dimensions,\u201d general manager J.J. Picollo said, adding, \u201cThe group that we have right now in a small window where this stadium is still going to be in existence \u2014 we had a chance to capitalize.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a fascinating development, really, particularly if it\u2019s additive to roster supplementation rather than a replacement for it.<\/p>\n

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But what\u2019s more fascinating: That everything above is already true, because they\u2019re not making this change without that reality.<\/p>\n

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Royals general manager J.J. Picollo said he doesn\u2019t anticipate this will change the team\u2019s identity. That might be true, but only for one reason: They already<\/i> have changed their identity, at least to a degree.<\/p>\n

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\"Kauffman <\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture>
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For years, the Royals have been built on defense and baserunning, not only because it\u2019s their preferred style but because their stadium demanded it\u2019s part of their DNA. That DNA won a World Series. It\u2019s not that they no longer want to be a good defensive and baserunning team.<\/p>\n

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But last year, they converted a second baseman into their opening-series left fielder, and they converted a rookie first baseman into their right fielder for 52 late-season games. They lived with the 15th-rated left field defense and the 23rd-rated right field defense, per Fangraphs, so long as they could try to get a little more offense in the lineup. This, from a team that long considered it vital to collect three Gold Glove caliber outfielders, because you had to prioritize covering the spacious Kauffman Stadium.<\/p>\n

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We\u2019ve already extended the compare-and-contrast exercise to the 2014-15 teams well past its expiration date. But rarely has there been such a definitive sign of the difference between past and present.<\/p>\n

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Those teams thrived from the idea of the ball in play.<\/p>\n

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This one just made a field dimensions change that will more easily put the ball out of play.<\/p>\n

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They don\u2019t need to adjust the roster to accommodate for bringing in the fences, because the roster beat them to the punch. It\u2019s B then A, not vice versa.<\/p>\n

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The new dimensions are designed to meet the roster where it sits.<\/p>\n

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And where it\u2019s going?<\/p>\n

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You can\u2019t help but wonder about the trickle-down effect \u2014 how it will alter roster decisions in the future. The Royals haven\u2019t exactly been shopping on the top shelves in free agency over their history, but they\u2019ve targeted a specific type of outfielder \u2014 one who can play above-average, if not elite, defense \u2014 because the stadium demanded they prioritize it.<\/p>\n

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The new Kauffman Stadium will remain in the top-10 of outfield ground for which to account \u2014 it\u2019s not one end of the spectrum to the other \u2014 but they just made the defensive assignments of the corner outfielders a little less demanding. They therefore just widened the range of acceptable targets.<\/p>\n

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Well, so long as they hit it out of the park.<\/p>\n

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Those two spots in the Royals lineup didn\u2019t hit a year ago. The outfield movement will add home runs but will subtract some singles and maybe even some doubles and triples, too. Those long balls need to come from the corner outfielders, but those are the spots whose defensive jobs just got a little easier.<\/p>\n

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It should lighten the load in the field.<\/p>\n

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They need to carry a bigger stick at the plate.<\/p>\n

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Related Stories from Kansas City Star<\/h5>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n
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Sam McDowell<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Kansas City Star<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sam McDowell is a columnist for The Star who has covered Kansas City sports for more than a decade. He has won national awards for columns, features and enterprise work. The Headliner Awards named him the 2024 national sports columnist of the year.<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.kansascity.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The wait for a new Royals ballpark plan perseveres. But the plan for a different ballpark? It\u2019s here. The Royals announced Tuesday that they will bring in the Kauffman Stadium fences by about eight to 10 feet \u2014 other than straightaway center \u2014 in time for Opening Day in late March. It\u2019s a glimpse, if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2060939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[432333,311235,432334,27155],"class_list":["post-2234623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-fences","tag-kauffman-stadium","tag-moving","tag-royals"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Royals-to-retain-hitting-coach-Alec-Zumwalt-for-2026-season.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2234623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2234623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2234623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2234624,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2234623\/revisions\/2234624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2060939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2234623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2234623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2234623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}