Let’s create a stadium where the stands crowd up right next to the foul lines, give or take a few feet to allow for first- and third-base basepaths, as well as the batter’s boxes.
We are going to all but eliminate caught foul balls. What other outcomes would result? Batting averages would see a dramatic rise. Do hitters aim for the Three True Outcomes even more, if that’s even possible? Do pitchers revolt?
Batting averages probably would go up at least a tiny bit, with foul-outs becoming largely extinct, but I’m not sure that we’d see the “dramatic rise” you suggest.
I’m not sure that it’d cause a significant change in hitting strategy; most hitters are already trying to hit the ball in the air (“launch angle”) and hit it in fair territory, so I don’t see any of that changing.
One side effect you’d likely have is a greater frequency of injury among fielders, running into the walls while trying to catch fair balls. Those sorts of injuries already happen with some frequency, and I suspect that they’d happen more often. Also, with “zero foul territory,” you’d have to put the dugouts just a few feet away from the baselines, and that, too, would likely lead to more injuries, both for players on the field, and players (and coaches) sitting in the dugouts.
Runners intent on rounding third to head for home will have to slow drastically to make the turn.
Let’s assume dugouts that are in line with the stands next to them, and are screened/netted in like the rest of the stands (similar to how they set it up the stands in Japan).
Even so, your proposal would eliminate the distance between the dugout and fair territory, giving people in the dugout less time to react to foul balls (and bats) flying towards them, as well as still making it more likely that a fielder will accidentally run into the dugout; even if there aren’t steps, there are still railings, other people, and benches for a fielder to collide with.
I’m trying to visualize what would happen to wild pitches and passed balls. If the wall was just a few feet behind the umpire, then the ball would quickly carom back into the field of play, probably past the catcher and towards the pitcher. It would make for some interesting situations, to say the least.
There’s already a variant of baseball with no foul territory. It’s called cricket.
That’s kind of the opposite though, isn’t it? Cricket took the foul territory of baseball, quadrupled it to a full 360° around the pitch, and said that it’s all fair territory. This would take the foul territory between the foul line and the stands and shrink it down to near nothing.
Kinda. Cricket, of course, predates baseball by a few hundred years (which you probably know), so it didn’t really take anything from baseball.
But, the net is that, in both cricket and your proposal for baseball fundamentally both are “everything on the field is fair territory,” even if the shape of the field is quite different.
I found this website, which is a pain to read but gives various dimensions.
Interestingly, it puts the old Rangers stadium at about the smallest foul territory at under 19,000 square feet and the Oakland Coliseum at over 40,000. Might be an interesting comparison to start with if there were other stats that might be useful.
When I read the OP, I thought that the proposal would be to keep the fields the same, just… there’s no such thing as a foul ball. You tip the ball and it goes behind the catcher, that’s an infield hit. One question with that - if you hit it over a side fence, is that a home run? Do that and you’d have players aiming for the sides!
I’ve tried to devise a hybrid of the two sports, no foul territory at all, extra fielders, but have to run when you hit the ball, still 4 bases (maybe the hitter doesn’t run, all pinch runners, he hits from the middle of the playing field), balls strikes the same. You would have a lot more balls in play of course, fewer strikeouts. It would be wild, and alien.