Buck the Trends: Park factors and the KC Royals

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Hello friends!

I'm excited to be making my first-ever contribution here at Kings of Kauffman. I am confident I have probably encountered many of you on the forums or social media and I am honored Kings of Kauffman and FanSided have given me this opportunity to produce KC Royals stories as a contributor.

I have followed the Royals since I was old enough to walk. I always wanted to play second base because my favorite ballplayer, Frank White, played second base. I’m not going to lie, I was a terrible ballplayer; no matter how hard I tried, I could never make the throw to first. I moved out to the outfield in my early teens and wasn’t a terrible left fielder. I could slap hit towards the top of the order. But by the time I was old enough that we had to start wearing baseball pants, I gave up the game and moved on to soccer, but wasn’t particularly good at that, either.

I come to you as a professional researcher, a librarian, and a total stats junkie who, despite a dislike of baseball pants, still loves to watch and think about the game.

Buck the Trends

I’m excited to introduce you to "Buck the Trends," a new Kings of Kauffman series which I've named in honor of late Kansas City legend Buck O’Neil, a positive soul consistently undervalued by too much of the baseball community. In this series, we will take a look at current trends and the use of statistics, and explore how the Royals could buck trends by moving in an opposite direction of the broader market.

We'll also take a look at key statistics, perform general analysis, develop strategies, look at key prospects and rostered players, and consider potential trade and free agent targets that could help the Royals move in a different direction.

Let's go...

Let’s talk first about Kauffman Stadium

Kauffman Stadium is one of the oldest ballparks in the majors. Although there are currently ongoing talks about building a new stadium, we're probably still close to a decade away from moving out of The K, so any planning done by the current Kansas City front office is likely to be done knowing the Royals will be playing at Kauffman for the foreseeable future.

What makes Kauffman Stadium unique? It's 410 feet to centerfield and 330 feet to each of the outfield corners and is the only symmetrical big league ballpark because there are no cut-ins or odd-shaped outfield walls. While it doesn't have the deepest center field, it does have the deepest corners and, because it's symmetrical, has the biggest major league power alleys.

A power alley is the area of the ballpark where a power-hitter will likely hit a baseball with the most power. This is the area of the outfield between right and center and left and center. These large power alleys contribute to high hit totals in Kauffman Stadium.

Kauffman is, of course, an outdoor ballpark and, as any Kansan or Missourian knows, there is a lot of west wind in the area. Due to its orientation at the Truman Sports Complex, left field is positioned so that righthanded pull hitters swing predominantly into the wind. Although it is easier to hit home runs to right field vs. left, the Kauffman wind tends to knock balls down even to right field. Their park gives the Royals an advantage by naturally minimizing home runs.

The home run and power alley factors make Kauffman extremely unique — it's generally pitcher-friendly, but the power alleys help teams that can put the ball in play. The K generally produces among the most hits in the majors, but just as typically doesn't yield a lot of home runs.

How can we interpret all that?

Home runs are of minor concern

Statcast data reveals Kauffman Stadium historically limits home runs to 75-80 per season. This is a substantially low number when compared to league leader Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, which averages 125-130 per season.

There has been a recent trend among big league teams to pursue three true outcomes for hitters at the plate — that is, players who strike out, walk, or hit homers. These players will strike out more but also walk more. The argument is that getting on base is more important than getting a hit.

However, given that Kauffman Stadium offers as much as a 50-home run advantage over other ballparks, this is a factor the Royals can exploit in their pitching development and defensive strategy.

On the mound, we know Kauffman Stadium provides some protection from one of the three true outcomes — home runs. Because of this, the Royals do not need to be as concerned about giving up the long ball. This affords them the unique opportunity to take three true outcome players out of their game plan by locating pitches in the zone. The Royals can focus on location, and inducing bad contact, as opposed to attempting to strike batters out.

For example, when Brad Keller broke in with the Royals in 2018, much of his success was attributable to his 54.4% GB rate. Wouldn't it be great if every Kansas City pitcher could induce groundballs at a +50% rate?

Those groundballs are pretty hard to defend with gloves in the field though. Let's look at how defenders factor into the power alleys.

Defending the power alleys

On defense, the Royals should strongly consider developing a team that can defend the power alleys. Because teams can't hit a lot of home runs at Kauffman, they attempt to attack the power alleys to gain an advantage. To ensure success, the Royals should place top-tier defenders at shortstop, second base, centerfield, and left field.

The good news is they already have a great start with stellar defenders Bobby Witt Jr. at short and Kyle Isbel in center, and second base options are strong with Michael Massey, Nick Loftin, or Maikel Garcia, all of whom are above-average infield defenders.

Being strong up the middle can reduce the ability of hitters to reach the power alleys. A Gold Glove-caliber defensive center fielder is a must to cover as much of the outfield as possible. Because the majority of baseball players are righthanded, pulled balls off their bats will go to left-center. This is why lining up Alcides Escobar, Lorenzo Cain, and Alex Gordon was so important to the Royals' most recent run of great success.

Speaking of Gordon, one area the current Royals need to improve is corner outfielders. Problems in the corners were significant contributors to the 2023 team's inability to prevent runs. Look for several stories this offseason focused on improving the corners, particularly left field.

The KC Royals need to attack the alleys!

Because the Royals' offense cannot fall back on the home run due to Kauffman's park factors, they need to produce runs in other ways. One way to achieve this is to buck the trend of the three true outcomes that other teams are so focused on.

Just as other teams might take advantage of The K's power alleys, the Royals could build a team with those alleys as the focus of their offense. How would they achieve this? By zeroing in on high-contact players with line drive ability and doubles power.

Hitters do not have to be All-Stars at the plate to be successful in Kauffman Stadium. In 2014, it was a shock when Ned Yost put aggressive-swinging shortstop Alcides Escobar in the leadoff spot. It was a smart move. Despite not being a high-average hitter, Escobar averaged over 25 doubles and 65 runs a season as a Royal primarily because he was so well-suited to hitting the power alleys in Kauffman. Escobar's two best hitting seasons were 2014 and 2017 when he hit 34 and 36 doubles with line-drive rates of 26% and 26.2%.

Escobar is a good metric for Kansas city's front office to build upon. He was a stellar defender, a great role-player on offense, and a dependable ironman who rarely missed a game.

Thanks for joining me for this first edition of Buck the Trends!