Three seasons after the Orioles moved the left-field wall at Camden Yards back to make the stadium more pitcher-friendly, general manager Mike Elias said Friday that Baltimore “overcorrected” initially and will be adjusting the wall once more.

In some places, the wall will move as much as 20 feet closer to home plate. In others, it’s as little as 9 feet. But the move comes after the baseball operations department realized the wall had become something of a “distraction” for hitters, Elias said, particularly right-handed batters.

The new dimensions will be ready before 2025 opening day.

“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. So as you see with the new intended dimensions, it retains some of the depth in left field, a good bit of it. This will be much more fair and favorable to the pitchers than the original dimensions of Camden Yards. But clearly, it’s a lot less severe, and I’m hopeful this will strike the right balance.”

According to Statcast, MLB’s advanced metrics site, the deeper wall cost Baltimore hitters 72 home runs while saving the team’s pitchers from surrendering an additional 65. Ryan Mountcastle experienced the most lost homers with 11, and Austin Hays followed with eight near-misses.

In a three-year rolling sample from 2019 to 2021, Camden Yards featured the third-highest park factor (105), meaning it was very hitter friendly, according to Statcast. From 2022 to 2024, with the new wall, the park factor dropped to 99, slightly below the average of 100, meaning is skewed toward pitchers. Its home run factor — a statistical measure of how many home runs were hit, with 100 being average — was even less at 93, per Statcast.

For right-handed hitters, it was even more noticeable. Between 2022 and 2024, Statcast rated the home run park factor for righties as a 79, the fourth-lowest among major league parks. The home run metric had been a major-league-high 125 between 2019 and 2021 for right-handed batters.

Elias said the park’s prior dimensions were an obstacle to building a competitive team during the rebuilding years, but “that doesn’t mean that we’re going to be stubborn if we overshoot the mark on something.”

Now, he hopes, it won’t be a topic of conversation as the team tries to recruit free agents.

In 2022, Orioles first baseman Trey Mancini admitted that “nobody likes” the wall. “No hitters like it, myself included,” he told The Baltimore Sun at the time. His statement came after New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge took aim at the new dimensions, which saw the wall move back 30 feet and increase in height about 5 feet.

“It looks like a create-a-park now,” Judge told reporters.

Elias said the planned adjustments won’t impact the seating bowl. The Orioles won’t be adding seats to fill the gap, but there will be a new stand for Mr. Splash to spray fans. The changes also include a less-severe angle in the outfield of 120 degrees compared to a near 90 degree distance change.

The initial adjustment, made ahead of the 2022 season, was made in part to help attract pitching to Baltimore. But it came at a cost, leading to an attempt to make the impact more “neutral,” Elias said.

“I think it’ll be easier for right-handed hitters to produce power numbers at this park, there’s no question about it,” Elias said. “I’m sure you can name the guys on our team that are probably the happiest about this news. That will be helpful. I look at our current outfield mix with guys that we know are returning for sure, and it’s a very left-handed mix. We’ll be seeking some right-handed players to balance that out.”

Mountcastle may be one of the happiest players to hear about the change. He hit 13 home runs in 2024. If he had played all 162 games at Camden Yards, per Statcast, that would’ve been 11. But if he had played every game at Yankee Stadium, for instance, Mountcastle would’ve hit 20 homers.

While the Orioles have a left-handed-heavy lineup, there is a focus on adding a right-handed outfielder this offseason. Options could include Teoscar Hernández, Tyler O’Neill and Jurickson Profar. Conversations with those players could be easier with a less-imposing wall.

“I think that we wanted, and we want, a park that is neutral, tilting toward pitcher friendliness,” Elias said, “but the disparities between the two sides of the park were not the intent, and it had created some dramatic differences and it affected player personnel thought and outcomes in a way that we weren’t anticipating when we made the move.”

When the Orioles adjusted the wall ahead of the 2022 season, state officials approved a plan for the Maryland Stadium Authority, which owns Camden Yards, to provide a discount to the club’s rent to cover the cost of the project. The rent credits, covering roughly $3 million, span from 2022 to 2026.

With a change coming pre-2025, a source with direct knowledge said the Orioles will pay for the wall adjustment this time.

Asked Friday if the stadium authority is frustrated by the wall being moved in just three years after it was pushed back, chair Craig Thompson said the board is fine with the move, especially since there is now a “new ownership group, a new vision.”

A group led by billionaire David Rubenstein purchased the ballclub from the Angelos family earlier this year.

Baltimore Banner reporter Hayes Gardner contributed to this report.