More homers? St. Louis Cardinals spring training home gets new fences
The ongoing bit regarding spring training numbers is that they’re all fake unless they’re not, which makes the measurable change made at the spring training home of the St. Louis Cardinals and Miami Marlins so much more impactful.
As the first step in the significant renovations that are being undertaken at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium and the attached training complexes, the bullpens in the stadium have been relocated from foul territory down the first and third base lines to a safer and more typical spot behind the fences in right and left field. To fit those changes, the fences have been drastically pulled in – the left and right field power alleys were previously 387 and 382 feet, respectively; they are now 362 and 366 feet. The left field line has also been hauled in five feet, cut from 330 down the line to 325.
“I don’t mind it,” Cardinals manager Oli Marmol said with a laugh. His pitchers may be less of a fan, but all told, it’s certainly worth the tradeoff.
Top prospect JJ Wetherholt made noise on Sunday, Feb. 23 when he popped the team’s first homer of spring training, an opposite field shot that cleared the wall in left center. It was measured by Statcast at 345 feet – a batted ball with a .660 expected batting average that would have gone for a home run in none of MLB’s 30 regular season ballparks.
“I was really just tracking it,” Wetherholt said later. “I was like, well, it’s two things. It’s either going out, or it’s getting caught, so I don’t really have to run too much.” He did indeed get to jog around the bases, much to the surprise of most in attendance.
RJ Yeager’s bolt later in the same game was 367 feet, and would only have been a home run in Wrigley Field. The computers didn’t gather all of the data on Luken Baker’s shot on Monday, Feb. 24, missing the distance, but its exit velocity and launch angle properties gave it only a .080 expected batting average. José Barrero has perhaps the team’s only pure home homer of spring to date; his 407-foot blast on Feb. 24 would have escaped every outfield other than the spacious expanses in Colorado and Pittsburgh.
Home run totals at ‘The Dean’
“The Dean,” as the park is colloquially known, used to be where home runs went to die. In the space of one spring, it has instead become a band box, which is important to keep in mind when considering the validity of the related spring stats. The Cardinals, as a team, hit nine total home runs in 14 spring home games, and none in the two road games played at Roger Dean against the Marlins.
They had four in two home games entering action on Feb. 27, and the Marlins have five in three. Early returns, to be sure, but they are undoubtedly dramatic.
“I’ve seen more balls get out than I’m used to,” outfielder Jordan Walker admitted. “But that’s a good thing for us, and also sometimes a bad thing for us.”
The good is likely to overwhelm the bad in this specific instance. Pitchers in spring training are focused on execution much more than they are results. On a given day, at least in the spring’s opening weeks, focus remains on getting through a prescribed number of pitches and working in adjustments to the repertoire. It’s ideal if results follow the work, but it’s far from a guarantee, especially given the variability of lineups.
Hitters searching for homers, though, generally have a harder time keeping their collective eyes on the process prize. All the cage work in the world will struggle to replicate the feeling of a ball coming purely off the barrel of a bat and the satisfaction of seeing it sail over the wall, or at least find a gap between fielders. It’s one thing to know baseball is a game of failure, but it’s another to be able to properly compartmentalize that thought and tune out the creep of frustration.
“You still have all the underlying stuff,” Marmol said of his staff’s attempts to turn a noisy ballpark switch into a clear signal of which hitters are pointed in the right direction. “This is the conversation at many ballparks that we don’t play at, right? We’re used to here, we’re used to Busch, and then we sit here and talk about our offense not being good.
“The reality is that homer that Baker hit is a homer in other places, and they jog around (the bases) and feel really damn good about themselves, rather than coming in and trying to figure out what the hell’s wrong with their swing, so I welcome some being normal now.”
Matt Carpenter once told a story about visiting Busch Stadium with the New York Yankees and stepping out of batting practice after only one swing, fearing that the challenging park would lie to him about his swing being out of whack. Roger Dean has long been even more intense than that, and given the lack of Statcast data available at the home of the Astros and Nationals in Palm Beach, there were some real barriers to giving full, fair assessments of hitters.
That cuts the other direction, of course. The Cardinals should not expect to hit two home runs for every home game during the regular season. But if the new spring park tilts a little in favor of the long ball, it’s certainly a welcome respite from three decades of trying to scrape shots over the wall.
This story was originally published March 1, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
