The Kansas City Royals are bringing the outfield fences a little closer to home plate at Kauffman Stadium, the team announced on Tuesday.
Per the team-provided diagram, the left- and right-field corners will be pulled in 9 feet to 347 and 344 feet, respectively. Left- and right-center field will be moved in 10 feet to 379 feet as well. Center field, however, will remain 410 feet from home plate.
The height of the walls also is being reduced, going from 10 to 8 1/2 feet in most places.
“There’s a lot of different things that go into it,” general manager J.J. Picollo said. “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.”
The Royals previously moved in the fences from 1995-2003 only to return to the stadium’s original dimensions in 2004.
“Our goal here isn’t to have an offensive ballpark,” Picollo said. “It’s to have a very fair ballpark. We don’t want it to turn into a bandbox and every ball up in the air turns into a home run. We just want hitters to be rewarded when they hit the ball well, particularly in the gaps.”
