What Effect Moving the Fences at Camden Yards Would Have?

I have been wondering how fence distance affects home runs.  I thought I had read somewhere that a ten foot difference results in a 20% difference in home runs.  However, I can not find that article, so I decided to figure it out myself.  I used Hit Tracker and simply graphed a section of the wall at Camden Yards with ten foot sections marked off.

In this section 138 home runs were hit from 2009-2011.  In the graph above, if the fence was at line 1 (the bottom most line), then 138 home runs would be hit.  If the fence is set ten feet back at line 2, then 108 home runs would have been hit.  That is a reduction of 30 home runs that were hit in that 10 foot space along this section of the wall.

The following graph shows the relationship between moving the fence back and home runs:

You can then use this information to predict the effect of moving a fence.

The graph above is a bit confusing.  Somehow my tired brain could not figure out how to do it.  Anyway, the way the x-axis works is that you go out to the furthest distance the fence could stand with no home runs and move back in.  The stretch of wall I looked at had a distance of 340 to 395 and correlates to the 80 mark.  Knowing that, we then can produce the following table showing how distance affects home runs over the course of three seasons:

Beginning	End	Projected Home Runs	Actual Home Runs	Percetage
260	315	469		342
270	325	417		304
280	335	367		268
290	345	321		234
300	355	278		203
310	365	238		174
320	375	201		147
330	385	167		122
340	395	137	138	100
350	405	109	108	80
360	415	85	83	62
370	425	63	62	46
380	435	45	47	33
390	445	30	31	22
400	455	18	17	13
410	465	9	12	7
420	475	4	2	3
430	485	1		1

Revising the Season Projection: May 1st

With a month in the books, Camden Depot's projections have not exactly panned out in the short term.  Projections rarely line up over the short term, but tend to do a decent job with a greater data set.  Much of this is about finding true talent levels of players.  The Orioles are a team I think performance projections have difficulty because so many pieces have a poor amount of data.  For instance, WeiYin Chen's performance is difficult to project because the NPB is a completely different environment than MLB.  Or, projection models are unable to predict that Jason Hammel will find amazing success with a 2 seamer.

The revisions I present for the AL East over the course of the season will give the teams credit for what they have accomplished, but that they will perform according to their predicted talent level in the future.

	Current	Preseason	May 1st	Change
New York	13	97	97	0
Boston	11	92	90	-2
Tampa Bay	15	83	87	4
Toronto	12	79	79	0
Baltimore	14	68	72	4

If the Orioles can keep their pace of pulling in four more wins than they were projected for each month, they will finish with 92 wins.  That would put them in very good position for a Wild Card.