Data shows wind has quietly wreaked havoc on Royals’ hitters at Kauffman Stadium
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Statcast data shows Kauffman Stadium lost 67 would-be home runs to wind.
- Royals installed stadium weather stations and measured wind patterns that cut fly balls.
- Royals moved in outfield fences to offset wind losses and help hitters.
Baseball fans of a certain age may recall an epic Cubs-Phillies game during the 1979 season at Wrigley Field.
Philadelphia won 23-22 in 10 innings and the teams combined for 11 home runs thanks to a strong wind that was blowing out that day. Even today, baseball fans know how the wind can provide a huge boost to hitters at Wrigley Field.
And when the wind is blowing in, it can help the pitchers tremendously.
But do you know which ballpark has seen the most home runs prevented by the wind in recent years? It likely will come as a surprise, but it’s Kauffman Stadium.
A story on the Major League Baseball website last February looked at data from the previous two major-league seasons as measured by Statcast’s Weather Applied Metrics.
It found 67 would-be home runs were knocked down by the wind at Kauffman Stadium. Second on the list is Wrigley Field at 56. That’s based on calculations of a ball being hit 25 feet farther (wind blowing out) or 25 feet less (wind blowing in).
The story noted 5 mph worth of wind behind a ball can add nearly 19 feet of travel distance.
At Wrigley Field, the wind giveth and it taketh away, but in Kansas City just two home runs were wind-aided. That means the wind effect at The K resulted in negative-65 home runs, per the MLB story. No. 2 on the list of ballparks was Wrigley Field at negative-43.
Data for the 2025 season hasn’t been made public, but the Royals are keenly aware of the wind’s effect on hitters at Kauffman Stadium. It’s one reason for the team’s decision to move in the fences at The K.
Daniel Mack, the Royals’ assistant general manager for research and development, mentioned the wind during Tuesday’s news conference.
“Obviously, we know the park’s dimensions, right? It’s a top five ballpark by outfield square footage, but there were other things we’ve got to bring in to account as well,” Mack said. “We have access to more meteorological data than we’ve had in the past, which has given us an understanding of how wind patterns play at The K.
“It’s one of those ballparks where the wind, on average, hurts us. It’s as if our park plays with the walls about 5 feet further back on average. And as everyone who knows what a Midwest weather pattern looks like, we have really cold and really hot days, which, in some form, plays with the fly ball production on our ballpark quite a bit.”
Why the wind affects hitters at The K
The cool spring air and the hot and humid days of August can have an effect on a baseball.
You rarely hear players talk about the wind at Kauffman Stadium, but the data shows it wreaks havoc on hitters. Why is that?
For starters, Kauffman Stadium itself has little to block the wind.
The Royals know more now because they have weather stations at Kauffman Stadium. That has helped the team get precise information rather than relying on readings in other parts of Kansas City.
“We’ve got a lot of interesting value from that,” Mack said. “But it was an opportunity for us to kind of dive even deeper for a very specific problem. Instead of being player centric, it was park centric, with the players being, sort of the actors on that front. And we then sort of tried to understand what consistency looked like across all of Major League Baseball, so we could see how other parks play.
“But one of the things that happens for us is those wind patterns in particular, are different enough compared to other parks, primarily because of some of the open spaces with the CrownVision in the middle.”
That’s why the Royals hope the fences being moved in will help offset the wind issues that have hampered their batters in the past.
This story was originally published January 15, 2026 at 9:59 AM with the headline "Data shows wind has quietly wreaked havoc on Royals’ hitters at Kauffman Stadium."
