The Kansas City Royals have made a lot of moves this offseason to try and improve their team. Kansas City is now making a unique change, shifting the fences at their home stadium.
“The Kansas City Royals are moving in most of the fences at Kauffman Stadium by 10 feet and lowering their height as well,” ESPN's Jeff Passan posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday.
The Royals front office went into detail about why the team is making these adjustments.
“We want a neutral ballpark where if you hit a ball well, it should be a home run,” Royals general manager J.J. Picollo said, per ESPN. “The second they start feeling like they can't 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.”
Kansas City missed the postseason in 2025, and finished the year with a 82-80 record.
Royals are chasing the postseason for 2026
Kansas City has the MLB Playoffs in sight for 2026. The team recently signed their manager, Matt Quatraro, to a contract extension.
The team would certainly love to have more runs too in 2026. Moving the fences at the stadium might be a way to accomplish that. The Royals finished 26th in MLB in 2025 in runs and home runs, per league stats.
“It's not that we're trying to jump-start our offense,” Picollo said. “The more neutral it is at home, the better success we think we'll have overall.”
This is not the first time Kansas City has tried this. The Royals moved the fences in in 1995, and kept those measurements in place until the 2004 season. Time will tell if these new changes add any more pop to the Royals' bats.
“You know, in the end, we might go, ‘You know what? We shouldn't have done that,'” Picollo said. “But I think it's a five-year window to give a shot and see if we like how it plays.”
Royals fans certainly hope it plays well.
