Which O's benefit from 'Walltimore' being toppled?

This story was excerpted from Jake Rill’s Orioles Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

BALTIMORE -- Prior to the 2022 season, the Orioles decided to push back the left-field wall at Camden Yards. Pitchers were excited. Right-handed hitters, not so much.

Ryan Mountcastle was never a fan. When the righty-swinging first baseman was in Baltimore in February 2023, to participate in Birdland Caravan events that occur each offseason, he was disappointed to see the wall hadn’t moved.

“It looked about the same,” Mountcastle said with a grin on Feb. 3, 2023. “You see all these other parks moving it in, and I guess we’re moving it out. It is what it is.”

Mountcastle will be much happier the next time he steps into the batter’s box at Camden Yards.

The left-field wall at the Orioles’ home ballpark is coming back in a bit, general manager Mike Elias announced Friday, with new dimensions expected to be in place for the 2025 season. It won’t be as shallow as it originally was from 1992-2021, but it also won’t be nearly as deep as it was the past three seasons.

Baltimore is lowering the wall’s height -- from 13 feet to 8 in some spots and 6 feet, 11 inches in others -- and is moving it closer, ranging from 9 to 20 feet in various areas.

“It became clear to us and me and our staff, our coaches, our players, the feedback we received over three years of lived experience that it was a directionally correct move, but we overcorrected,” Elias said. “Once we came to the decision that that was the case, I decided that this was something we wanted to address as soon as possible.”

Let’s look at the O’s hitters who should benefit most from the newest wall modifications.

1B Ryan Mountcastle
No hitter in baseball felt the pain of “Walltimore” more often than Mountcastle the past three years. According to Statcast, the 27-year-old had 11 non-homers hit to left field at Camden Yards that would have been home runs prior to the 2022 wall change. No other player had more than eight during that span.

In 2021 (the final season of Camden Yards’ original dimensions), Mountcastle slugged a career-high 33 home runs -- 22 of which came at home. Of his Camden homers that year, nine were hit to the left of the bullpen area, with at least three of those not going deep enough to clear the deeper wall (had that been in place).

Mountcastle, who is set to earn a raise through arbitration, is a potential trade chip, as the Orioles have Ryan O’Hearn and top prospect Coby Mayo also in the mix at first. But they may want to hold onto Mountcastle, who may better tap into his power thanks to the wall changes.

C Adley Rutschman
Rutschman is a switch-hitter, but he still knows the feeling of having a home run robbed by Camden Yards’ deep left-field wall. Even though only 240 of his 858 career home plate appearances have come as a righty, the 26-year-old has had seven balls hit to left that would have been a homer pre-2022.

In 2024, Rutschman was better hitting right-handed (.329/.390/.512 in 182 plate appearances) than left-handed (.219/.290/.342 in 456 plate appearances). But he struggled for much of the second half, recording a .585 OPS with three homers in 234 plate appearances after the All-Star break.

Perhaps having a shorter left-field wall to clear at home will help Rutschman avoid that type of prolonged slump in 2025.

INF Coby Mayo
Mayo, Baltimore’s No. 1 prospect and MLB Pipeline’s No. 8 overall, went homer-less during his first 17-game big league stint in 2024. But the 22-year-old has a powerful right-handed bat, as evidenced by his 34 home runs in 151 Triple-A games over the past two seasons.

With a bright future likely ahead of him, Mayo’s 65-grade power should now play better at Camden Yards when that becomes his home ballpark on a full-time basis, likely during 2025.

Potential free-agent signings
At last week’s GM Meetings in San Antonio, Elias said he was targeting right-handed hitters to add to the Orioles’ outfield mix. Anthony Santander, a switch-hitter who belted a career-high 44 homers for Baltimore in 2024, is now a free agent.

Whether it’s Santander or another free-agent signing -- such as Teoscar Hernández, Tyler O’Neill, Jurickson Profar or somebody else -- the new wall will bode well for a righty slugger.

“We’ll be seeking some right-handed players to balance that out. We’ll see what happens, we’ll see where it goes,” Elias said. “We’ve got a lot of possibilities on that front.”