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The Royals will be making changed to Kauffman Stadium
The Kansas City Royals made the postseason in 2024, but failed to have the same success in 2025. Still, the Royals made the decision to extend manager Matt Quatraro. With that, Kansas City has to find a way to improve the team around him. One of those improvements is coming in the form of a change to Kaufmann Stadium.
Anne Rogers of MLB.com has outlined the changes the Royals have planned to make, effective immediately. Dead center field will remain 410 feet away from home plate, but all other areas will be moved in nine or 10 feet. The foul poles will be moved in nine feet each, while the rest of the fence follows up until center field.
Additionally, the Royals will be lowering their fence height from 10 feet to 8.5 feet in most areas around the ballpark. This will also add approximately 230 seats in total to the outfield bleachers.
Kaufmann Stadium is Now More Hitter-Friendly
GettyBobby Witt Jr could be a player who benefits from the changes.
The Royals played at a historically pitcher-friendly ballpark. But this was only true in terms of home runs. The gaps were large, and the lines were deep, which means less balls left the yard. However, it did mean there was more ground to cover in the outfield, and more fly balls or line drives becoming hits.
The lack of home runs was the main problem Kansas City’s leadership was trying to fix, though.
“Our goal here isn’t to have an offensive ballpark. 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,” general manager J.J Picollo told Rogers.
Statcast’s park factor is one tool used to measure how hitter-friendly a ballpark is. With 100 as the league average, Kauffman Stadium had a home run park factor of 83 last season. That means of the players that played at Kauffman and elsewhere, 17% less home runs were observed at Kauffman.
Over the last three years, The K has a home run park factor of 85. Simply put, home runs are not hit at Kauffman Stadium. Fly balls that might leave the park somewhere else turn into outs at Kauffman, and that is what Kansas City is hoping to change.
“But one of the things we know is that our fly balls, particularly in parts of this park — the run value per fly ball is significantly less than the league. It’s in the bottom third. We know our players feel that viscerally,” Dr. Daniel Mack, the vice president of research and development, said.
Pitchers Should Not Be Majorly Affected
GettyCole Ragans and Co. will not be majorly affected by these changes.
Moving the fences in was not a decision the Royals took lightly. They wanted to find a way to help the hitters score more runs and hit more homers, without hurting the pitchers in a major way. The impact of more home runs will no doubt be felt, but Kansas City does not think it will be as big a deal.
“The idea was to find a way to improve [the run value per fly ball] without improving it to a point that it hurts our pitching staff,” Mack said, per Rogers.
Kauffman Stadium already had a hit factor of 100 (league average), while their single hit factor was at 99. The number that might be most affected is triples. The K had the second-highest triples park factor in the MLB at 212.
With the fences moving in, there could be fewer triples, which helps the pitchers out. The home run factor at Kauffman Stadium was already very low. The changes made should still keep that number below the league average.
The point being, Pitchers are not going to feel the effects as much as one might think. But expect more fly balls to leave the park at Kauffman Stadium moving forward.
Cam Zunkel Cam Zunkel has been a sports journalist since 2022. He covers the NBA and MLB for Heavy.com. Cam also covers multiple MLB teams for On SI – part of the Sports Illustrated Brand. He is a former collegiate baseball player with two stops in the independent Frontier League. More about Cam Zunkel
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