Everything you didn’t know about home runs

Last year, the Orioles pushed back the left-field wall by 26 1/2 feet and raised the fences up from 7 feet, 4 inches, to 13 feet. It was clear that the changes would take home runs off the board, and they did—57, to be exact.

But it’s more than that. A lot more, because we immediately began to notice that a tremendous number of home runs were showing up like this one from Nick Senzel on Sunday, which easily cleared the fence in Oakland.

What, you might be asking, does a home run hit by a Cincinnati Red in Oakland, CA (see the video here) have anything to do with Baltimore? As the end of that video showed, Senzel’s home run would have been out of 29 of the 30 parks. Camden Yards is the 30th—and, as it turns out, that happens a lot. A lot.

Batted balls that would have been out of every park save one (2022-‘23)

BAL 427
COL 186
SF 155
BOS 78
DET 57
ARI 12
KC   10

Sawchik: Are the Blue Jays creating a launch pad with their new fences?

And then Park Avenue wonders aloud why eighth and ninth-place hitters are swinging for the fences, even with two strikes…

“Our team modeled these adjustments, and we anticipate they will create a similar, neutral environment,” Marnie Starkman, the Blue Jays’ executive vice president of business operations, told reporters last month.

To investigate the claim, theScore consulted with baseball physics expert Dr. Alan Nathan to explain what the changes might mean. We also reviewed every Rogers Centre fly ball from last season that we felt could be affected by the changes.

We used Statcast’s distance projections and launch angles and also employed the eye test to try and discern whether a ball would or would not clear the new fences. It’s by no means a perfect study, but hopefully it gives us a general idea of how the park will play.

What we found: The Blue Jays are going to need a bigger wall if they want to keep home runs neutral. The Rogers Centre could become the most favorable place in the game for long balls.