loanDepot park: The History, the Dimensions and How the Park Plays

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 11 min read

A guide to loanDepot park, home of the Miami Marlins: its retractable roof and turf, its dimensions, the football stadium the club left behind, and what the franchise's record says about life there.

loanDepot park is the baseball-only home the Miami Marlins moved into for the 2012 season, the first year the club carried Miami in its name instead of Florida. The historical record lists the building as Marlins Park for its first nine seasons and as loanDepot park from 2021. It has a retractable roof, an artificial turf surface, a capacity of 37,442 and gaps that are deep next to the two other parks this guide compares it with. For a franchise that spent its first 19 seasons in a football stadium, it was a very different place to play.

The reason to know the park is practical as well as historical. A roof decides whether a rainy day in South Florida produces a baseball game or a postponement. A turf surface changes how ground balls behave and how far infielders can range. And a set of fence distances that runs from 335 feet in right to 400 feet in center says something about what kind of hitter prospers and what kind of pitcher is comfortable.

This guide covers the club's two homes and their six names, the reference data for the current park, how it compares with two other parks, what the franchise's results suggest and do not prove, and sensible advice for a visit. The opening date of the park is not in the data we rely on, so we give only what the database shows: the club's first season there was 2012.

From a football stadium to a baseball park

The Marlins began play in 1993, and for their first nineteen seasons they shared a stadium with an NFL team. The historical record lists four names for that one building: Joe Robbie Stadium (1993 to 1998), Pro Player Stadium (1999 to 2004), Dolphin Stadium (2005 to 2010) and Sun Life Stadium (2011). Those are naming-rights changes, not four different places.

A football stadium is a compromise for baseball. The field is built around a football layout, the seating bowl is designed for a different set of sightlines, and the schedule has to accommodate another tenant. That is part of why the club pushed for its own park, and why the arrival of Marlins Park in 2012 was a major event for a team that had never had a ballpark of its own. The new park was built on the site of the old Orange Bowl in Miami's Little Havana, a fact that tied the building to the city instead of to a suburban stadium district.

One number captures the difference. The best season attendance in the franchise's history is 3,064,847, in 1993, the first year, at Joe Robbie Stadium. A crowd figure that large reflected the novelty of a new team and a football-size building. The best figure the database records for the new park's first stretch, 2012 to 2020, is 2,219,444, and the best for the years since 2021 under the loanDepot name is 1,162,819. Attendance is a poor measure of a ballpark's quality, but it is a fair measure of how interest in the club has moved with its results.

The reference data in one table

The site's ballpark record for loanDepot park gives the following:

Elevation matters because air gets thinner as you climb. At 10 feet above sea level, loanDepot park gets no help from altitude at all, which puts it at the opposite end of the spectrum from Denver. A retractable roof matters because it makes the weather a decision and not a fact: when it is closed, wind, rain and sun are out of the game.

The record gives distances but not wall heights, and it does not give foul-territory measurements. Those details affect how a park plays and are not in our data, so the sections below talk about what the distances imply and stop there. Parks of every age have had their fences moved or their walls reshaped at some point, so older articles may quote different distances. The figures here are the site's current reference data.

The dimensions beside two other parks

Here are the five distances beside the same figures for Sutter Health Park and Nationals Park:

Averaging the five distances gives 370.4 feet for loanDepot park, 363.6 for Sutter Health Park and 364.0 for Nationals Park. On that crude measure loanDepot park is the biggest of the three by about seven feet. The left field line is the longest of the three lines at 344 feet, and both gaps are the deepest of the three: left-center at 386 feet and right-center at 387, which is 17 feet deeper than Nationals Park's 370. Center field is the exception. At 400 feet it is the shallowest of the three, three feet short of Sutter Health Park's 403 and two short of Nationals Park's 402, so the extra depth in this park sits in the gaps and not straight away. Fence distances are as listed on the site, and clubs adjust walls over time, so read a difference of a few feet as a rough guide only.

A few feet of distance sounds trivial, but the margin matters. A fly ball that carries 400 feet is a home run in a park with a 395-foot fence and an out in a park with a 405-foot one, and every hitter hits some balls that land within a few feet of the wall. Adding ten feet to the gaps turns a share of those near-misses into outs, and the ones that stay in play give the outfielders more ground to cover. Deep gaps are, over a season, a hitter's tax and a pitcher's gift.

The park has a reputation for suppressing offense, and the geometry supports the idea. We cannot prove it from the numbers in this article, because a park factor needs several seasons of runs scored at home and on the road, adjusted for the clubs involved. Treat the reputation as a hypothesis the dimensions are consistent with, not as a measured result.

Turf and a retractable roof

The surface at loanDepot park is turf, which in the site's data means artificial turf. Compared with natural grass, turf is faster. A ground ball keeps its speed instead of slowing in the blades, so a ball hit between infielders reaches the outfield sooner, and a hitter who can hit the ball on the ground with authority has an advantage. A ball that bounces on turf also bounces higher and truer than on dirt and grass, so a chopper over the pitcher's head is more likely to be an infield hit.

That favors speed and range in the infield. A shortstop who covers a lot of ground gets to balls that would be hits on a slower surface, and a fast runner turns a chopper into a single. It also changes how a team should build a defense: you want athletic infielders and outfielders who can run down a gap ball.

The roof is the other defining feature. A retractable roof lets the club play in the sun when the weather is pleasant and under cover when it is not. South Florida summers are hot, humid and prone to heavy afternoon showers, and the Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30. A closed roof turns all that into a controlled indoor game. The team and the league decide when the roof is open, and the practice can change from season to season, so check the club's site for that day's plan.

With the roof open, orientation counts. The record lists an azimuth of 128, so the line from home plate to center field points to the southeast, and fielders look back toward home plate in the opposite direction, to the northwest. In summer, when the sun sets to the west-northwest, a low sun could shine in a fielder's face for a stretch of the early evening. This is geometry, not a measurement taken at the park, and it matters only when the roof is open.

Two homes, six names

The database groups the franchise's parks as follows:

Reading the table as a story, the first row is the debut: a new team, a big building and the best crowd the club has ever drawn. The next three rows are the long middle of the football-stadium years, with the crowd peaking below the 1993 figure. The last two rows are the baseball-only park, first under the name Marlins Park and then, for the last five seasons in the table, under the name loanDepot park.

Naming rights explain most of the labels. The lesson for anyone researching old games is to search both the name and the building, because a box score from 2005 will say Dolphin Stadium, one from 2013 will say Marlins Park and one from 2023 will say loanDepot park. They are two stadiums in all, not six. The same habit helps with any club whose home has changed names, which is most of them.

What the Marlins' record says about life there

The historical record shows 33 seasons for the franchise through 2025, a record of 2,382 wins and 2,792 losses (a .460 winning percentage), two league pennants and two World Series titles. There have been no division titles in those 33 seasons. The four postseason trips came through the wild card: 1997, 2003, 2020 and 2023.

Both championships came in the football-stadium era. In 1997 the club went 92-70, beat San Francisco 3-0 in the division series, Atlanta 4-2 in the pennant series and Cleveland 4-3 in the World Series. In 2003 it went 91-71, beat San Francisco 3-1, Chicago's Cubs 4-3 and the New York Yankees 4-2 in the Series. The historical park labels place both titles in the Joe Robbie and Pro Player years respectively. No title has come in the baseball-only park, and its postseason results are brief: in 2020 the club beat the Cubs 2-0 in a wild-card series and lost 0-3 to Atlanta in the division series, and in 2023 it lost 0-2 to Philadelphia in a wild-card series.

The club's worst seasons by winning percentage include 1998 (54-108), the year after the first title and the start of a stretch in which the club sold off much of its roster, as well as 2019 (57-105), 2013 and 2024 (both 62-100) and 2018 (63-98). Don Mattingly managed the most games for the club, 1,018 from 2016 through 2022, and went 439-579.

Individual honors are scattered across the years. Giancarlo Stanton was the National League MVP in 2017, Sandy Alcantara won the Cy Young Award in 2022, and the Rookie of the Year winners are Dontrelle Willis (2003), Hanley Ramirez (2006), Chris Coghlan (2009) and Jose Fernandez (2013). For the full narrative, see the history of the Miami Marlins, the best players in club history and the best seasons and October runs.

Who the career leaders are, and what that can and cannot tell you

The club's career leaders are a mix of power and pitching. In home runs, Giancarlo Stanton leads with 267 for the club (2010 to 2017), ahead of Dan Uggla with 154 and Hanley Ramirez with 148. In hits, Luis Castillo leads with 1,273, then Ramirez with 1,103. On the mound, Ricky Nolasco leads in wins with 81 and strikeouts with 1,001, and Sandy Alcantara is second in strikeouts with 921. Among pitchers with at least 1,000 innings, Alcantara's 3.64 earned run average is the best, then Dontrelle Willis at 3.78 and Nolasco at 4.44.

These numbers combine home and road games, so they say nothing by themselves about the park. They do show the shape of the club: its leaders in the counting categories are modest by the standards of older franchises, a result of a short history and frequent roster turnover. The 267 home runs by Stanton are the most by any Marlin, but they came across eight seasons, in a club that has never kept a core together for very long.

The honest approach to park effects is to compare a hitter's home and road splits over many seasons, which this fact sheet does not carry. If you want to investigate the question yourself, the leaders page carries the current figures.

Visiting the park

Prices, gates, bag rules, parking and transit are the club's to publish and they change, so use the club's official site for those. The general advice is simple.

• Check the roof plan for the day before deciding what to wear. A closed roof means air conditioning; an open one means South Florida heat and humidity.
• In summer, expect afternoon thunderstorms in the region and give yourself extra travel time on a stormy day.
• Look at the seating chart for the outfield, where the two gaps, 386 and 387 feet, are the deepest in the comparison above; a seat in the gap sees plenty of long fly balls caught for outs.
• Remember that a 37,442-seat park is mid-sized by major-league standards, so a typical crowd leaves empty seats and you can often choose where to sit. Buy ahead for a rivalry game against Atlanta, New York or Philadelphia.
• Read about those rivals before the game: the Atlanta Braves, the New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies share the division with Miami.

Common questions

When did the Marlins move into the park? The database lists Marlins Park for 2012 through 2020 and loanDepot park for 2021 through 2025, so the club's first season in the building was 2012.

Is loanDepot park a pitcher's park? The distances and the reputation say so, but the evidence in this article is not enough to prove it. A park factor needs several seasons of results.

Does the roof always close? No. The roof is retractable, which means the decision belongs to the club and the weather. Check the club's official site for the plan on game day.

Why does the database show six names for two homes? Because of naming-rights deals. Joe Robbie Stadium, Pro Player Stadium, Dolphin Stadium and Sun Life Stadium are one football stadium under four names; Marlins Park and loanDepot park are one baseball park under two.

Did the Marlins ever win a title at the current park? No. The 1997 and 2003 World Series titles came earlier, in the football-stadium years.

Where to go next

For the live record and schedule, use the Miami Marlins team page, and for reference data on the building itself the loanDepot park page. The Marlins topic page collects current news, and the history of the World Series puts the club's two championships in context.