After three seasons of a heightened and lengthened left-field wall, the Orioles have decided to bring the wall in, executive vice president/general manager Mike Elias announced on Friday in a video conference call.
Before the 2022 season, the Orioles increased the distance from home plate to left-center field about 26 ½ feet and increased the height of the wall from about 7 ½ feet to as high as 13 feet.
According to Baseball Savant, Orioles hitters have lost 72 home runs over the last three years while Orioles pitchers saved 65 home runs.
“We made the change between the 2021 and 2022 seasons as we were trying to pursue a more neutral, but also a more pitcher-friendly array at Camden Yards, and we were doing so under the time constraints of a single offseason and seeking a way to make, at that time, our extremely homer-prone park more neutral, perhaps erring to the side of pitcher-friendliness, ” Elias said.
The Orioles announced those changes in early January 2022, three months ahead of Opening Day. These modifications will be in place for the March 31st home opener against Boston and won’t involve any change in seating, Elias said.
At the time of the initial changes, the Orioles had lost 110 games in 2021 and had a team ERA of 5.84. In 2022, the Orioles increased their win total from 52 to 83 while their ERA fell to 3.97.
“Given the uncertainties of the game, offensive environments, it became clear to us, and me, our staff, our coaches, our players, the feedback we received over three years of lived experience that it was a directionally correct move, but we overcorrected.
“Once we came to the decision that that was the case, I decided that this was something we wanted to address as soon as possible. We developed a plan to seek a happier medium for these dimensions prior to 2025.”
During the two-game Wild Card Series that the Orioles lost to Kansas City and scored just one run, both Ramón Urías and Jordan Westburg lost home runs to left field, and over the last three years, Baseball Savant calculates that Ryan Mountcastle lost 10 home runs to the wall. Trey Mancini, who was traded in July 2022 lost four home runs. ‘
“Our hope is that by pulling the dimensions in a little bit, and in some areas it will be as much as 20 feet. In others, it will be more like 11 feet and as little as nine. We will be able to get closer to what our original goal was, was a neutral playing environment that assists a balanced style of play, a park that was overly homer-friendly prior to our changes in 2022 that is now a little overly skewed given what we did back then.
“We’re seeking a more neutral playing environment, but this is one that we think will assist the pitching environment here at Camden Yards relative to where it was, but be a little less drastic, particularly as it pertains to our right-handed hitters.
“I know our hitters are obviously going to be excited about. The pitchers will be less excited. We’re thinking this will improve the overall style of play and retain some of the benefits from the changes that we made while discarding some of the extremities.”
The Orioles are in the early stages of recruiting free agents, and Elias wants to add some right-handed hitting outfielders since switch-hitting Anthony Santander may sign elsewhere.
“That’s not a reason we’re doing it,” Elias said. “In many ways, this may make the park less attractive to pitchers, which is one of the reasons that I initially made this change. I think a byproduct of this will be that the extremities of the park won’t be so skewed against right-handed bats and that was an unintended consequence.
“The right field area of our park, where the flag court is and the Warehouse, that’s a very hitter-friendly dimension. In order to pursue what we’re hoping was a more neutral overall environment for the park, the method that we used back in 2021 and 2022 to push the left field area back most drastically. That’s where we had more than our fair share of homers. It was also the area we could modify easily and realistically in one offseason, and we did.
“We overcorrected. The offensive environment shifted a little bit. We got more than we bargained for, and it’s something that we modified and adjusted, and we think it’s too far right now…We’re hoping to seek a little happier medium after these changes.”
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