Baltimore Orioles Adjust Dimensions at Camden Yards, Move in Left Field Wall

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"Walltimore" is no more.
The Baltimore Orioles announced Friday that they would be adjusting the dimensions of Camden Yards ahead of the 2025 regular season. The left field wall is the focus of the changes, just three years after it was pushed back to its current distance.
From 1992 to 2021, Camden Yards was one of the most hitter-friendly parks in MLB. The team then moved the left field wall back to 384 feet and 398 feet at its deepest points, and righties saw their power numbers dip as a result.
Now, the 13-foot wall will be shortened to 8 feet in some places and 6 feet, 11 inches in others. The deepest points will be 374 and 376 feet, and the wall will make a 120-degree cut into the previous field of play.
General manager Mike Elias broke down the reasoning behind the adjustments in a press conference Friday.
"Our hope is, by pulling the dimensions in a little bit ... that we will be able to get closer to what our initial goal was: a neutral playing environment that assists a balanced style of play at a park that was overly homer-friendly prior to our changes in 2022," Elias said. "It is now a little overly skewed given what we did back then."
Orioles GM Mike Elias announced that they are changing the dimensions of the left field wall at Camden Yards.
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) November 15, 2024
Here is a rendering of the proposed changes ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/V30TN2e25m
According to Statcast, there were 138 fewer home runs at Camden Yards between 2022 and 2024 than there would have been with the prior dimensions.
Ryan Mountcastle, who lost out on 11 home runs over the past three seasons as a result of the adjusted left field wall, will surely be glad to see the fence pulled in. Adley Rutschman, Jorge Mateo and Anthony Santander – who became a free agent earlier this month – each got robbed of seven.
"The feedback consistently was that the extremity of the disparity in the park was a little bit more of a topic of conversation than we had bargained for. We didn’t like the degree to which this had become a distraction in many ways," Elias said. "I know that the pitchers enjoyed it. But for our hitters, for our right-handed hitters in particular – for our left-handed hitters, too – aspects of this were a little severe."
No new seats will be added to the left field bleachers, although there will be a platform for "Mr. Splash" installed in the gap between the new and old wall next to the bullpens. Mr. Splash is the team's chief hydration officer who sprays Section 86 – "The Bird Bath" – with a hose.
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Sam Connon is a staff writer covering baseball for “Fastball on SI.’’ He previously covered UCLA Athletics for On SI’s All Bruins site, and is a UCLA graduate, with his work there as a sports columnist receiving awards from the College Media Association and Society of Professional Journalists. Connon also wrote for On SI’s New England Patriots site, Patriots Country, and he was on the Patriots and Boston Red Sox beats at Prime Time Sports Talk. Sam lives in Boston.
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