MLB 2016 Changes

[SilverBullet1929]

The Twins red alternate...

 

A beautiful looking jersey with one big problem...

 

The jersey itself? Not bad at all. It's simple and successful. The new gold they use looks so much better on the red than on their regular whites and on the navy cap. The gold trimmed logo feels like an alternate logo so it looks best on an alternate jersey and cap. The red cap goes very well with it but the navy cap should also look fine with it if they choose that route one day.

 

Now the problem...

 

It absolutely looks like a BP jersey. It would have fit in perfectly with the 2014/15 BP caps and jerseys. Why? It's simplicity just feels like BP, where oftentimes "less is more." There's just too much empty space on the front of the jersey. There's literally nothing on the front except for the logo over the heart, the rest is blank red emptiness. Cap logos do not work on a colored jersey. Something is needed to break up the monotony of the rest of the space on the jersey. The only colored jerseys with cap logos over the heart that work at all are the ones with headspoon piping (like Washington and Cincinnati). The piping is huge in killing the empty space. This piping also appears on white and grey cap logo jerseys (Reds home white, Giants road grey alternate).

 

With that said, I think most of us would agree the most successful cap logo jerseys are those with pinstripes (Yankees, Cubs, White Sox, anyone remember the 03-05 Marlins home Sunday alternates?). This is no coincidence... the pinstripes fill the empty space left by the smaller logo.

 

The red Twins alternate jersey is very nice, I love it. But when I see it, I automatically think it's a BP jersey. I'd like to see how it would have looked with the navy Twins wordmark logo of the home whites but this time with a gold and white outline up against the red.

[OnWis97]

2 minutes ago, SilverBullet1929 said:

The Twins red alternate...

 

A beautiful looking jersey with one big problem...

 

The jersey itself? Not bad at all. It's simple and successful. The new gold they use looks so much better on the red than on their regular whites and on the navy cap. The gold trimmed logo feels like an alternate logo so it looks best on an alternate jersey and cap. The red cap goes very well with it but the navy cap should also look fine with it if they choose that route one day.

 

Now the problem...

 

It absolutely looks like a BP jersey. It would have fit in perfectly with the 2014/15 BP caps and jerseys. Why? It's simplicity just feels like BP, where oftentimes "less is more." There's just too much empty space on the front of the jersey. There's literally nothing on the front except for the logo over the heart, the rest is blank red emptiness. Cap logos do not work on a colored jersey. Something is needed to break up the monotony of the rest of the space on the jersey. The only colored jerseys with cap logos over the heart that work at all are the ones with headspoon piping (like Washington and Cincinnati). The piping is huge in killing the empty space. This piping also appears on white and grey cap logo jerseys (Reds home white, Giants road grey alternate).

 

With that said, I think most of us would agree the most successful cap logo jerseys are those with pinstripes (Yankees, Cubs, White Sox, anyone remember the 03-05 Marlins home Sunday alternates?). This is no coincidence... the pinstripes fill the empty space left by the smaller logo.

 

The red Twins alternate jersey is very nice, I love it. But when I see it, I automatically think it's a BP jersey. I'd like to see how it would have looked with the navy Twins wordmark logo of the home whites but this time with a gold and white outline up against the red.

I agree with most of this.  I think the gold looks far better on this jersey than it has anywhere else.  And it does look like a BP jersey.  In fact, it should just be their BP jersey.  

 

(Of course, I'd rather never see them in a red hat and I'd rather they just dump this gold thing altogether.) 

 

I don't entirely agree with the bold.  I like chest logos better than most...I think they look great with spoon piping.  On their own they are OK, but that is what's making this feel like a BP jersey

[Proc]

I do not like the Blue Jays one.  It looks more appropriate for the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Put the blue jay on the cap!

[SilverBullet1929]

10 minutes ago, OnWis97 said:

I agree with most of this.  I think the gold looks far better on this jersey than it has anywhere else.  And it does look like a BP jersey.  In fact, it should just be their BP jersey.  

 

(Of course, I'd rather never see them in a red hat and I'd rather they just dump this gold thing altogether.) 

 

I don't entirely agree with the bold.  I like chest logos better than most...I think they look great with spoon piping.  On their own they are OK, but that is what's making this feel like a BP jersey

Thanks for responding. Excellent points, I may have jumped the gun saying pinstripes are clearly the best. I think we're both agreeing though that either spoon piping or pinstripes are better than the empty space left by the chest logos, which is the problem with the Twins here.

 

In a weird way I think that Twins jersey is making me miss the underarm/side panel gussets of the previous BP jerseys. That little splash of color on both sides (just the sides, not the full panel colored backs like the Rockies and Nationals had) helps to kill the empty space as well. And while not everyone cares for those gussets, they did the job of taking up the space. They might have made this jersey that much better.

[Sport]

17 hours ago, TheOldRoman said:

 

 

You can't see all that clearly from this angle, but this is crap. The tramp stamp logo is just dumb, but the side panels are inexcusable. MLB has been whoring itself with these garbage stars and stripes/camo caps for a few years now, then even matching jerseys the last two years. But for some reason I thought MLB was smarter than to fall for the crap the NFL fell for about uniform technology and the teams' design taking a back seat to the supposed function. Clearly I was wrong.

This is not okay. I feel like writing Majestic a letter. 

 

I'm really glad my team no longer wears pinstripes. It was bad enough with the armpit inserts being blank, but there's no excuse for an entire side panel to be missing a key element of the jersey. That's like putting a black side panel on a blue jersey and saying "eh close enough". It's a baseball shirt. It doesn't need a side panel to begin with!

[OnWis97]

Yeah, it's all just unnecessary, faux-performance gimmicky, garbage.  MLB is (or was?) just hanging by a thread as the league that was doing the least spitting on tradition.  Yeah, we've had odd designs going back to the 1970s Astros, and some odd ones before that.  And yeah, there are too many uniforms and we had the sansabelt era.  Trying to create "performance" uniforms, though?  Cool Base is fine by me since you need to practically be wearing the jersey to see the difference, but side panels constructed so fans will see the performance "advantage?"  Are you kidding me?  The Yankees are going to have a gap in their pinstripes on each side of the jersey?  Come on Majestic.  You guys are boring; we love that and we count on that.  And this tweat shows potential contrasting panels?  I really hope this does not become the construct of the jersey...because you know you'll be able to see it on all the colored alts; sweatboxes for MLB!

 

Regarding the tramp stamp; tramp stamp tattoos should have had the following benefit: this feature would cease to exist on sports uniforms.  Guess not.  It looks ridiculous.  I can deal with it on the upper neck (I cannot tell from the Syndergaard photo whether that's still there)...to have it on both is simply overkill (not to mention on the hat).  And if they have to have it once, please do it on the top of the jersey.  It just sticks out so much on the pants.

 

MLB uniforms have held a nice chunk of their dignity while the other sports were circling the drain...those days may be coming to an end.

[WSU151]

1 hour ago, Packid said:

It would appear that the Pirates are adding '70s yellow throwbacks to their uniform lineup.

 

http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pirates/2016/01/28/Pirates-going-for-a-simple-appoach-to-spring-training-uniforms/stories/201601280184

 

Probably one of the better articles on a team's uniforms - he provides more details than a usual rundown.    

[TheOldRoman]

1 hour ago, Almighty said:

Paul Lukas of Uni Watch fame ? 

 

Seeing as he spelled his own name wrong, no.

[Bouj]

Concerning pinstripes on FlexBase panels: Majestic didn't see excluding pinstripes from the CoolBase gussets, so why would they see the need to put them on the panels?  It's essentially the same material.  Remember, it's a feature, not a bug.

And this from Uniwatch: "But Chris Creamer tells me that’s not the case. 'Regular season will be all Flex Base for all teams,' he said in an email to me yesterday. 'I don’t believe players will have the option anymore. And yes, Yankees included.'"

I cannot believe the Yankees capitulated.  Big Stein is rolling over in his grave.  The seamless pinstripes are no more!  So much for NY & TOR being in doubleknit.

[aawagner011]

Hopeful insight regarding those pesky patches:

 

 

 

[Viola73]

3 hours ago, Packid said:

It would appear that the Pirates are adding '70s yellow throwbacks to their uniform lineup.

 

http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pirates/2016/01/28/Pirates-going-for-a-simple-appoach-to-spring-training-uniforms/stories/201601280184

As long as the 70's throwbacks are skin tight and the stirrups are visible....all for it. BUT, if they go pajama pants and baggy top...it's going to look like garbage.

 

[Almighty]

49 minutes ago, TheOldRoman said:

 

Seeing as he spelled his own name wrong, no.

Or maybe you are giving him to much credit 

 

[Sport]

1 hour ago, Bouj said:

Concerning pinstripes on FlexBase panels: Majestic didn't see excluding pinstripes from the CoolBase gussets, so why would they see the need to put them on the panels?  It's essentially the same material.  Remember, it's a feature, not a bug.

It's a feature and it's a bug. Majestic decided after 150 years of playing in the summer heat players needed some air vents. Feature. They left the pinstripes off the air vents for no other reason than to make them more noticeable and to further brand their product. Bug. Could they sublimate some pinstripes onto these air vents? Of course they could, but they choose not to and I don't think it because they're too lazy. They're trying to make a uniform element their trademark like Nike did with their football template, like Rawlings did with those batting helmets with the extraneous ridges. 

 

"Why would they see the need to put them on the panels?" Because large areas of blank space looks bad and spits on tradition? A uniform supplier's "improvements" shouldn't compromise the design of the uniform. This thinking has chipped away at football uniforms for too long, somewhat in the NHL with the Edge, definitely in the NBA with adidas' problem with custom, multi-layered numbers, and now it's happening in baseball too. 

[The_Admiral]

2 hours ago, TheOldRoman said:

 

Seeing as he spelled his own name wrong, no.

"I wonder if this 'Homer Nixon' is any relation."

"Unlikely, sir; they spell and pronounce their names differently."

[Bouj]

5 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

It's a feature and it's a bug. Majestic decided after 150 years of playing in the summer heat players needed some air vents. Feature. They left the pinstripes off the air vents for no other reason than to make them more noticeable and to further brand their product. Bug. Could they sublimate some pinstripes onto these air vents? Of course they could, but they choose not to and I don't think it because they're too lazy. They're trying to make a uniform element their trademark like Nike did with their football template, like Rawlings did with those batting helmets with the extraneous ridges. 

 

"Why would they see the need to put them on the panels?" Because large areas of blank space looks bad and spits on tradition? A uniform supplier's "improvements" shouldn't compromise the design of the uniform. This thinking has chipped away at football uniforms for too long, somewhat in the NHL with the Edge, definitely in the NBA with adidas' problem with custom, multi-layered numbers, and now it's happening in baseball too. 

 

1. Air vents aren't new.  Wool jerseys had them.
2. "It's a feature, not a bug" didn't come across sarcastically enough.  I'm saying that Majestic thinks it's a feature, not a bug.  Believe me, I am not defending Majestic.  I thought it was moronic that it took them 3 years to produce CoolBase in a single shade of grey, and it's moronic that they never put the pinstripes on the gusset/panel material.  Meanwhile, UA can make poly jerseys that look like old-style wool.

[Paul Lucas]

3 hours ago, WavePunter said:

I'm not a huge fan of the WS patches anyway.. I'd actually be more in support of the league patch for the WS, to show which league each team is representing in the WS.. But the patch is redundant.. I know what game it is, that's why I tuned in.. It's especially overkill to have it on both jersey and hat as well 

I could see that point. To me, World Series patches are special. I grew up in the Bronx, NY and every WS patch invokes a great memory of Yankees' wins and jubilance in the City. It's like a 'badge of honor'...for the winning team, at least. 

[Paul Lucas]

I was debating what my user name should be, I figured something with 'New York' in it. But then I thought...you fine gentlemen (and ladies, if there are some) of distinguished taste would appreciate the humor. Obviously, I'm not Paul Lukas, but I am a big fan of UniWatch. 

 

(And, yes, the 'c' was definitely intentional...and avoids legal issues)

[FiddySicks]

4 minutes ago, Paul Lucas said:

I was debating what my user name should be, I figured something with 'New York' in it. But then I thought...you fine gentlemen (and ladies, if there are some) of distinguished taste would appreciate the humor. Obviously, I'm not Paul Lukas, but I am a big fan of UniWatch. 

 

I, for one, enjoyed it. Hence my "sup n00b" comment   

[Paul Lucas]

4 hours ago, Bucfan56 said:

 

I, for one, enjoyed it. Hence my "sup n00b" comment   

 

 

[BadSeed84]

Just please dont use lukas's lingo, his blog imo is becoming more cringy (like he's calling the superbowl.......supe50. Yea I don't get it either,  sb50 is how a sane person would write it)

 

Also, i wonder if they could at least add one pinstripe in the center of the gusset.