Welcome to this edition of the Royals Beat newsletter. My name is Anne Rogers, and I'll be delivering news and insight to your inbox all offseason long. Thanks for following along! KANSAS CITY -- It was August of last year when Vinnie Pasquantino first heard the Royals were thinking about moving in the fences at the expansive Kauffman Stadium, and when the project was confirmed this winter, it was hard to explain his feelings in a way other than excitement. Because of his slugging ability and 32-home run 2025 season, Pasquantino was one of the main players on most people’s minds when the Royals announced this week that they’re moving the right- and left-field walls in nine to 10 feet, with the wall height being lowered to 8 1/2 feet – all an effort to keep The K spacious but boost home runs. “The initial reaction is excitement, especially from a selfish perspective,” Pasquantino said in a phone interview with MLB.com. “Other than that, it’s cool that the Royals were willing to look at it, do some research on it, see if it would benefit us -- and not even necessarily benefit us but see if it would turn the park into something a little bit different than what it was. “I think they found that this is a happy medium of what they’re doing, because they’re only moving it in 10 feet or so. It’s not like they’re moving it in from 389 to 360 feet. We’ll see what it looks like. It’s hard to speculate what’s going to happen before there’s any sort of games played on it.” In the past two seasons, the Royals have hit 329 total home runs, tied with the Rays for sixth-fewest in MLB. In home games, the Royals have hit 146 home runs in the past two seasons, tied for third-worst. Kauffman Stadium has a slightly hitter-friendly park factor of 101 using Statcast Park Factors, which considers all output at each venue by both home and road teams (100 is league average). Breaking down each specific event backs up what we see with our eyes: Doubles and triples thrive at The K, and home runs are hard to hit. |
The changes the Royals are making aim to neutralize that fact without hurting the pitching staff too much. “It’s simply: When a ball is hit well, you’ll be rewarded,” general manager J.J. Picollo said. That’s a welcome mindset, Pasquantino said, and he expressed his appreciation for the Royals’ ideas and research that went into the project. How it might change things for the team, though, Pasquantino isn’t sure yet. “If you look at our lineup the last few years, everybody has hit fewer home runs than expected,” Pasquantino said. “What I don’t know is whether I got, like, seven more hits because the outfield was playing bigger. … And it’s such a weird thing because it’s both a positive and negative, based on who you ask. It changes things, it just does, especially from an analytical perspective.” Since the announcement, there have been several articles on what exactly this means for Royals hitters and pitchers. Common sense tells us that home run hitters like Pasquantino, Salvador Perez and Bobby Witt Jr. should hit more home runs. Young lefty slugger Jac Caglianone will likely get a boost. Players who aren’t really home run hitters, like Jonathan India and Michael Massey, could see an impact, especially because they hit the ball in the air quite a bit. |
There’s not really a way to predict how many more home runs a player will hit with the new fences because there are way too many factors at play. Ben Clemens at FanGraphs wrote an interesting piece, though, using his own model, and he compared every batted ball from 2025 to two sets of wall coordinates (the current and new dimensions). He identified 43 additional home runs in the new configuration. Clemens looked at specific hitters, too, predicting that Pasquantino and Witt would have seen their home run total increase by three apiece, Perez’s by four, and India’s and Maikel Garcia’s by five. Once new fence data hits the system, our research gurus at MLB.com will be able to use Statcast 3D trajectory to build visuals and give us a better understanding of how this all might look, like they did with Comerica Park in 2023 and Camden Yards last year. Pasquantino has tried not to think about how many home runs he would have or will have with the new dimensions. There are other things to focus on this offseason as he trains in Nashville and ramps up for Spring Training and the World Baseball Classic -- and an arbitration hearing in the coming months -- and as a middle of the lineup hitter for the Royals, he knows his job is to slug, no matter the park. “I’ve stayed away from it because I don’t want to think about how it affects me,” he said. “Because what does that mean? Does that mean outs being taken away? Are there doubles being taken away? What does that look like? I think it’s something you try not to think about, especially in past tense, because it doesn’t matter.” The joke that circulates when the Royals are on the road is that now is the time to hit your homers because they’re not in cavernous Kauffman anymore. Of course, most players don’t actually think that, at least subconsciously. Most hitters will tell you that changing your approach based on the park you’re in is a dangerous game to play. |
“We’ve been told that we change our approach, and I don’t know if there’s a way to quantify that,” Pasquantino said. “But it’s not something I’ve ever done, at least consciously. I think in passing, you think about it like, ‘Hey, we’re in Yankee Stadium. Short porch.’ Or in San Fran, it’s really far out to right-center.” The funny thing about that, Pasquantino says, is that he’s never hit a home run at Yankee Stadium in seven regular-season games. In six games at Oracle Park in San Francisco, where it’s especially hard for lefty hitters like Pasquantino to hit? Two. At the end of the day, baseball can just be an unpredictable game. “It’s not like we’re going to flick balls out now with the new walls,” Pasquantino said. “You still got to get them. It’s just more fair. It’s not, ‘Oh, I crushed this ball and the guy caught it at the wall or it went off the wall.’ It’s a homer now. Because it should have been a homer.” |
MLB MORNING LINEUP PODCAST |
INTERNATIONAL SIGNING PERIOD |
The international signing period opened Thursday, and the Royals landed three top prospects: • Venezuelan outfielder Angeibel Gomez (No. 4)
• Cuban shortstop Jaider Suarez (No. 22)
• Venezuelan catcher Adrian Lunar (No. 43) Read about those prospects here and see the full list of the 19 international free agents the Royals signed. |
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