The Royals are turning things around at Kaufman Stadium.
In search of more home runs on their home field, the Royals are moving most of their outfield fences by 10 feet, the team announced Tuesday.
“We want a neutral ballpark where if you hit a ball well, it should be a home run,” the Royals general manager said JJ Picollo told ESPN. “The moment they feel like they can’t get the ball out of the ballpark, that’s when they start changing their swing. I’ve been watching it for years and years and years, and I felt like this is the time to try to push it and see if everything we’ve been feeling for years is right.”
While keeping their center field dimensions at 400 feet, the Royals will move the right-center and left-center fields from 389 to 379 feet.
The corners remain at a height of 100 meters.
The franchise also plans to shorten the outfield walls from 10 to 8 feet high.
Despite being tough on the home run front, Kauffman Stadium has been slightly friendlier to hitters than pitchers over the years, thanks in large part to its enormous outfield size, which is the second largest behind the Rockies’ Coors Field.
Over the past three seasons, The K has had a park factor of 101, meaning it has played somewhat hitter-friendly.
However, the size of the park has led to an excessive number of singles, doubles and triples, at the expense of home runs.
Kauffman Stadium had a home run park factor of just 85 over the past three seasons, which ranked third among all major league parks.
“Our goal here is not to have an offensive ballpark,” Picollo said. “It has to be a very fair ballpark. We don’t want it to become a band box and every ball in the air turns into a home run. We just want hitters to be rewarded when they hit the ball well, especially in the gaps.”
The hope is that a more neutral margin, Piccolo added, could help the Royals build a consistent winner in Kansas City.
“It’s not like we want to jump-start our offense,” Picollo said. “The more neutral it is at home, the greater the success we think we will have overall.”
Royals vice president of research and development/assistant general manager Daniel Mack said consistency for both hitters and pitchers is something the team has been looking for for years.
“You don’t want to make the park so offensive that it hurts your pitchers,” Mack said. “But one of the things we know is that our fly balls, especially in parts of this park, the run value per fly ball is significantly lower than in the league. It’s in the bottom third. We know our players feel that viscerally.”
Royals slugger Vinnie Pasquantino sounded intrigued by the changes in a lengthy social media post.
“I’m very curious to see how this will play out in different ways. And honestly, especially from a data perspective,” he wrote on X.
“Hitters love to hit the K because the visuals are beautiful, but everyone also agrees that it has been a pitcher’s park forever.”
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