{"id":519202,"date":"2026-01-14T02:14:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T02:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/519202\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T02:14:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T02:14:16","slug":"royals-moving-in-fences-in-dramatic-change-to-boost-home-runs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/519202\/","title":{"rendered":"Royals moving in fences in dramatic change to boost home runs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Royals are changing things up at Kaufman Stadium.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seeking more home runs at their home field, the Royals are moving most of their outfield fences by 10 feet, the team announced Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want a neutral ballpark where if you hit a ball well, it should be a home run,\u201d Royals general manager J.J. Picollo told ESPN<\/a>. \u201cThe second they start feeling like they can\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"VinnieVinnie Pasquantino celebrates as he rounds the bases after hitting a home run during the Royals win over the Nationals on Aug. 12, 2025 in Kansas City, Mo.. MLB Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

While keeping their center field dimensions at 410 feet, the Royals will move right-center and left-center field from 389 to 379 feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The corners will remain at 330 feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The franchise is also planning to shorten the outfield walls from 10 to 8 \u00bd feet high.<\/p>\n

Despite being tough on home runs, Kauffman Stadium has been slightly more friendly to hitters than pitchers over the years, thanks, in large part, to its massive outfield dimensions, which are the second-largest behind the Rockies\u2019 Coors Field.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over the past three seasons, The K has had a park factor of 101, meaning it has played slightly hitter-friendly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The park\u2019s size, though, has led to an outsized number of singles, doubles and triples, at the expense of home runs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kauffman Stadium had a home run park factor of just 85 over the last three seasons, which was tied for the third-lowest among all big league parks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal here isn\u2019t to have an offensive ballpark,\u201d Picollo said. \u201cIt\u2019s to have a very fair ballpark. We don\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CloudsClouds float above Kauffman Stadium during the sixth inning of the Nationals\u2019 win over the host Royals on Aug. 13, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The hope is that a more neutral ballpark, Piccolo added, could help the Royals build a consistent winner in Kansas City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that we\u2019re trying to jump-start our offense,\u201d Picollo said. \u201cThe more neutral it is at home, the better success we think we\u2019ll have overall.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 searching for for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t want to make the park so offensive that it hurts your pitchers,\u201d Mack said. \u201cBut one of the things we know is that our fly balls, particularly in parts of this park \u2014 the run value per fly ball is significantly less than the league. It\u2019s in the bottom third. We know our players feel that viscerally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Royals slugger Vinnie Pasquantino sounded intrigued by the changes in a lengthy post on social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very curious how this is going to play out in multiple ways. And honestly mostly from a data perspective,\u201d he wrote<\/a> on X. <\/p>\n

\u201cHitters like hitting at the K because the visuals are nice but everyone also agrees it\u2019s been a pitcher\u2019s park forever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Royals are changing things up at Kaufman Stadium.\u00a0 Seeking more home runs at their home field, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,936,2123,55,2596,2595,4,252,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-519202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-royals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-kansas","10":"tag-kansas-city","11":"tag-kansas-city-royals","12":"tag-kansascity","13":"tag-kansascityroyals","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-royals","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115891042795329662","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}