Target Field: The History, the Dimensions and How the Park Plays

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 10 min read

A guide to Target Field in Minneapolis: where it fits among the Twins' seven parks, its posted dimensions, what park factors and home run totals say about how it plays, and how to plan a visit.

Target Field has been the home of the Minnesota Twins since the 2010 season, and its opening ended a long stretch in which the club played under a roof. For 28 seasons, 1982 through 2009, the Twins played at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, an inflated-fabric dome famous for noise and for fly balls lost against a white ceiling. Target Field put baseball back outdoors in downtown Minneapolis, on grass, in a climate that can offer a perfect June evening and a freezing April afternoon within the same week.

This guide covers what the record can tell you about the park: the seven park entries the franchise has used since 1901, the distances to each part of the outfield, how the batting park factors and home run totals behave, what the cold does and does not change, and how to plan a visit. It also tries to separate what belongs to the building from what belongs to the era, because Target Field's reputation has swung from "pitchers' park" to "home run park" over its life, and most of that swing had little to do with the field itself.

The first outdoor Twins park in 29 years

The Twins' own history explains why the opening was a big event. The club moved from Washington to Minnesota for the 1961 season, and its first home in the Twin Cities was Metropolitan Stadium, an open-air park used from 1961 through 1981. In 1982 it moved indoors to the Metrodome, where it played the next 28 seasons and won the World Series in 1987 and 1991. Then, in 2010, it came back outside.

Attendance made the novelty obvious. The historical record shows 3,223,640 for the 2010 season, the highest total the Twins have ever recorded in any year. The best total at the Metrodome was 3,030,672, in 1988, and the best at Metropolitan Stadium was 1,483,547, in 1967. The club also won 94 games and the American League Central in 2010, so the first year at Target Field was both a new building and a good team. After that the numbers declined: 3,168,116 in 2011, then 2,776,354, then 2,477,644, then lower still as the team lost 99, 96 and 96 games in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

That decline is a useful reminder about ballparks and crowds. A new park sells itself for a season or two, and after that a ballpark draws the way its team plays. The figures in the historical record for 2020, which shows an attendance of zero for a 60-game season, and for 2021, which shows 1,310,199 during a year of capacity limits, are equally a story about the calendar, not the architecture.

Seven park entries in 125 seasons

The Twins' franchise, which the historical record tracks from 1901 as the Washington Senators and from 1961 as the Minnesota Twins, has used the following parks. The attendance column gives the best single-season total recorded in each.

The historical record lists Griffith Stadium as two entries, so the table has seven rows but fewer distinct buildings: early American League grounds in Washington, Griffith Stadium, Metropolitan Stadium, the Metrodome and now Target Field. The first generation, the Washington years, includes the 1924 World Series title, the club's first. The history of the Twins covers the move and the Minnesota era in detail.

The dimensions, line by line

The site's reference data gives these distances from home plate, in feet. As always, they are posted values rather than surveyed measurements, and a club can alter a fence, so check the club's own information if a precise number matters to you.

The field is moderately asymmetrical. The left-field line is eleven feet longer than the right-field line, and the right-center gap at 367 is ten feet shorter than left-center at 377. Center field at 404 is slightly shorter than the 410 posted for Oriole Park at Camden Yards. None of the distances is extreme. What the numbers suggest is a park where a left-handed pull hitter has a modest advantage down the right-field line and where the left-center alley, at 377 feet, is not very deep by league standards.

The rest of the reference data is straightforward. The park has a natural grass surface, no roof, a capacity of 38,544 in the site's data and an elevation of 828 feet above sea level. That is higher than the Atlantic coast parks but nowhere near Denver, where the elevation is more than a mile and the ball carries a long way. The listed latitude is about 45 degrees north, which is the single fact that matters most for understanding why the weather is the main feature of the park. The listed orientation, an azimuth of 129 degrees, points center field to the southeast. That is a different layout from the textbook recommendation of east-northeast, and it means that the sun and shadows fall across the field differently than they do in parks laid out by that recommendation.

How the park plays: park factors across 16 seasons

The historical Teams table carries a batting park factor (BPF) for each club-season, scaled so that 100 is neutral. The table below puts it next to the Twins' own home runs hit and allowed, and the American League average of home runs per team-game, because the second and third columns are how you tell the park from the era.

Over the 16 seasons of the park's history in the database, the batting factor ranges from 95 to 104, a narrow band centered close to 100. That says Target Field is close to neutral, with a handful of seasons on either side. The early years, 2011 and 2012, read as pitcher-friendly at 95 and 97, and 2014 through 2015 and 2024 through 2025 read as slightly hitter-friendly at 102 to 104. No single season is a safe guide, because park factors are noisy and depend on which hitters and pitchers the club used.

The home run columns tell a different story, and it is mostly about the league. The American League average climbed from under one home run per team-game in 2010 and 2014 to 1.30 in 2017 and 1.43 in 2019. A park that produced 103 Twins home runs in 2011 produced 307 in 2019, and the factor barely moved, from 95 to 100. The park did not triple its home run output. The ball, the swing and the lineup changed. In 2019 the Twins hit more home runs than any team before them in a single season, a total of 307 that Atlanta matched in 2023, according to the historical record, and the factor that year was a neutral 100.

That is the lesson to take from the table. When someone says "Target Field plays like a pitchers' park," they usually remember the early 2010s, when every park in the league was a lower-scoring environment. When someone says "it's a launching pad," they remember 2019. The building did not change much between those descriptions. The game did.

The cold, and what it does to the ball

Weather is the part of the Target Field story most often told and least often quantified. Minneapolis is far enough north that games in April and in the last weeks of the season can be played in temperatures that would be rare in most major-league cities, and the park is open to the air. Two effects follow, both well understood in general terms.

First, a cold, dense air mass carries a batted ball less far than warm air, because the denser air offers more resistance. The effect is real but modest, and it is the reason hitters and analysts expect home runs to be slightly harder to come by in April than in July at any open park. Second, cold affects people more than it affects the ball. Pitchers have a harder time gripping, hitters' hands sting on mishit balls, and defenders play a little more cautiously. The most useful rule of thumb for a fan is simply that a Target Field game in April may look nothing like one in August.

The historical data cannot say what the park does to blunt the weather, so check the club for what it offers today. The better habit is to look at the forecast the morning of the game and to dress in layers for any game before June or after August.

What October has looked like in the new park

The Twins' postseason record in the Target Field era is mostly a record of early exits. The historical series list for the club, from 2010 on, reads as follows: a 3-0 loss to the Yankees in the 2010 division series, a 1-0 loss to the Yankees in the 2017 wild-card game, a 3-0 loss to the Yankees in the 2019 division series, a 2-0 loss to Houston in the 2020 wild-card series, and in 2023 a 2-0 win over Toronto in the wild-card series followed by a 3-1 loss to Houston in the division series.

That 2023 win is the one that matters in the club's modern history. By counting the games in the historical series list, the Twins lost every postseason game from Game 2 of the 2004 division series through the 2020 wild-card series: three losses in 2004, three in 2006, three in 2009, three in 2010, one in 2017, three in 2019 and two in 2020. That adds up to 18 straight postseason losses, a long run for any club. The 2023 series against Toronto ended it. For fans who want the whole picture, the Twins' best seasons and postseason history goes through every October run, including the two World Series titles won under the Metrodome roof.

The park also hosted the All-Star Game in 2014. And it was the home park of Joe Mauer for nine of his 15 seasons.

The players who define the building

Most of the club's best-known players played before Target Field existed. The franchise career leaders in the database cover every park the club has used. Harmon Killebrew leads in home runs with 559 and in runs batted in with 1,540. Kirby Puckett has 2,304 hits and a .318 batting average with 207 home runs, and Rod Carew hit .334, the best average among the franchise leaders with at least 3,000 at-bats. Walter Johnson dominates the Washington years with 417 wins, 3,509 strikeouts and 110 shutouts.

The Target Field era belongs to Joe Mauer, who has 2,123 hits and a .306 average over 15 seasons from 2004 to 2018, with the American League Most Valuable Player award in 2009, the last season at the Metrodome. Justin Morneau won the same award in 2006, and Johan Santana won the Cy Young Award in 2004 and 2006, all before the move outdoors. Joe Nathan, with 260 saves, and Glen Perkins, with 120, were the club's leading closers across the move.

The Twins all-time greats article builds a position-by-position lineup out of these names. The point for a visitor is simple. Walk the concourse and you will find a good deal about the franchise's history, but you will be watching a team that, for most of its stars, played elsewhere.

Planning a visit: general advice

Prices, concessions and transit change, and this guide quotes none of them. Several habits hold from year to year.

• Check the club's official information first. Entry rules, bag policies and ticket procedures are published by the club and revised regularly. A good starting point is MLB.com.
• Dress for the date. Before June and after August, bring layers, and even a summer night can turn cool. Day games in July can be warm, so sun protection matters too.
• Look at the forecast the morning of the game. The park is open to the weather, so rain delays and postponements are possible.
• Give yourself time to walk around. The park sits in the downtown street grid, and the area around the gates is part of the experience.
• Choose seats with the sun in mind. With center field pointing southeast, an evening game casts shadows across the field in a way a generic seating chart will not show, so look for a map that marks shade.
• Check the schedule. The schedule page lists home dates, and the standings show whether a given series matters in the division race.

Common questions

When did Target Field open? The historical record lists Target Field as the Twins' home park from the 2010 season through 2025, replacing the Metrodome, which is listed for 1982 through 2009. The exact date of the first regular-season game is a matter for the club's own history.

Is Target Field a hitters' park or a pitchers' park? Close to neutral. The batting park factor in the database ranges from 95 to 104 over 16 seasons. Early-2010s seasons ran lower and recent seasons have run a little higher.

What are the dimensions? In the site's reference data: 339 feet down the left-field line, 377 to left-center, 404 to center, 367 to right-center and 328 down the right-field line.

Does Target Field have a roof? No. It has natural grass and is open to the weather, which is the main change from the Metrodome years.

Where did the Twins play before Target Field? At the Metrodome from 1982 through 2009, and at Metropolitan Stadium from 1961 through 1981. Before 1961 the franchise was the Washington Senators and played at American League Park and Griffith Stadium.

How many fans does it hold? The site's data lists a capacity of 38,544. The attendance high in the database is 3,223,640 in 2010, the first season at the park.

Where to go next

Start with the Twins team page and the Target Field page for the live record and next game, then read the Twins news topic. For the Twins' division rivals, see the histories of the White Sox, the Guardians and the Tigers, and for the stage on which the Twins won in 1987 and 1991, the history of the World Series.