BALTIMORE — Of the changes that have happened throughout the Orioles organization over the past handful of years, perhaps none is as certain to be long-lasting as the team’s decision to alter the left-field dimensions at Camden Yards. But for several reasons — “everything from the ball that Major League Baseball decides that we’re going to use to global warming,” as Orioles assistant general manager for analytics Sig Mejdal put it — the magnitude of that future impact is hard to measure in the present.
The same thought doesn’t quite apply to the past. Using data from MLB’s Statcast tracking system and an online plotting of home runs since its introduction in 2015, The Baltimore Sun determined that at least 14% of the home runs hit at Camden Yards in those seven seasons would have stayed in play with the ballpark’s new layout.
The changes, which The Sun first reported earlier this month, will see the wall from the left-field corner up to the bullpens in left-center field — an area representing about a third of the stadium’s fair territory — moved back by as much as almost 30 feet, with the wall’s height increasing by more than 5 feet as a result of the portion of the seating bowl being removed. Although the left-field corner is staying 333 feet from home plate, the wall’s distance quickly increases by more than 50 feet in that area, the farthest any ballpark’s wall is from home plate that close to the left-field foul pole.
