Current and former players react to Royals moving in the Kauffman Stadium fences
As the Royals continue to look for a place to build a new home, they announced Tuesday they are making changes to the current one.
The outfield wall will be moved in 8 to 10 feet starting near each foul pole, the team said in a news release. And the outfield gaps will shrink from 387 feet to 379 feet “and taper back toward center field, which will remain 410 feet.”
The Royals also are reducing the height from 10 feet tall in most places to 8 ½ feet.
This will allow the Royals to add more seats at Kauffman Stadium and help the offense. The team said it will improve the “run value of fly balls at The K from the bottom third of MLB ballparks to the middle, primarily through more extra-base hits.”
While pitchers might not welcome it, a few Royals players are excited about the changes.
“Absolutely massive news for hitters in KC!!” former Royals infielder/outfielder Whit Merrifield wrote on X.
He later responded to a fan by writing: “I think more than anything it gave KC hitters disadvantages when compared to their peers throughout the league.”
And Brent Rooker, who is now with the A’s, sent congratulations to his friend, Royals first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino.
Pasquantino only said he would share his thoughts on the move ... or he might not.
Former Royals catcher Drew Butera joked that he’d have shown more power if these dimensions had been in place.
“I would have had at least 1 more home run,” he quipped.
Vinnie Pasquantino’s nuanced response
Pasquantino did end up sharing his thoughts on X.
“I’m very curious how this is going to play out in multiple ways,” he wrote. “And honestly mostly from a data perspective (this hits close to home because I’m about to go into a room and hear how awful I am). The K was the 6th most hitter friendly ballpark according to the park factor. Will moving the fences in make this better or worse? Hitters like hitting at The K because the visuals are nice, but everyone also agrees it’s been a pitchers park forever.
“What this means is that you can’t hit cheap homers. That’s literally all a hitter saying a park is a hitters park or not means. But the data firmly supports it being a hitters paradise because you can get more singles doubles and triples. Will the park factor actually go down if it’s more of a neutral park because there will be less triples even if there is an uptick in home runs? What will this mean for WRC+, we get punished with this stat for playing at The K now.
“So what will happen? More home runs = more runs produced, but if the park factor goes down so does the punishment for probably the most important stat in our game from an individual standpoint. All in all, I truly believe hitters/pitchers alike just want fairness but we play one of the only sports where the field size changes and I think that’s one of the cooler things about our game.
“I just rambled a lot, but I think it’s cool the Royals were willing to make these changes to make it more of a neutral ballpark.”
This story was originally published January 13, 2026 at 10:53 AM.
