MLB Changes 2017

[daveindc]

9 hours ago, McCarthy said:

Light blue and yellow or light blue and dark green (think Tulane). I'd be happy with either one and both would be unique to major league baseball. 

 

Navy blue and light blue can get lost forever. 

 

Or maybe even light blue and dark green, with some yellow.

 

 

[TBGKon]

6 hours ago, goalieboy82 said:

this should be there Sunday home/throwback:

or

maybe add the old Blue Jays logo to it.  

 

They don't need a throwback alt.  Their uni set minus the red jersey is perfect.  Just toss in the modern white panel cap and you're golden.

[Cardsblues02]

The Jays set, even with the red uniform, is geat. The red is awesome IMO, it gives them a Canada's Team look. I think that the set they wear now is their BEST set ever. Easily best uniforms since the turn of the century. The black jay crap and steroid bird unis were BAD.

[Survival79]

On 8/13/2017 at 9:07 PM, daveindc said:

I always wondered why they didn't just go with Tampa Bay Manta Rays or Stingrays.

 

Manta Rays was apparently an option after the team announced the Devil Rays name. There was so much instant disdain when the nickname was revealed that ownership group leader Vince Naimoli set up a hot line where fans could vote for two alternates: the Devil Rays or the Manta Rays.

 

I've heard that Stingrays was an option prior to the 2008 change, but apparently there were issues with merchandising rights.

[MNtwins3]

Mariners are wearing their navy blue jerseys at home today...

 

anyone know why these jerseys have a completely different number font from the rest of the set?

[upperV03]

1 hour ago, MNtwins3 said:

Mariners are wearing their navy blue jerseys at home today...

 

anyone know why these jerseys have a completely different number font from the rest of the set?

They've been that way since 2003. I have no explanation for it, and it's something that's bugged me for as long as I can remember. Their font works pretty nicely for the wordmarks and logos, but not at all for the names and numbers IMO. Couple that with the fact that the rest of their jerseys feature the traditional block font, and there's really no excuse for the navy jerseys having the font from the logos. That's really the only significant gripe I have with their current set, though I do think there are a number of other small changes they could make to improve upon their look.

[Gothamite]

At the time, we thought it was them testing the waters for an overall change.  

 

But they never did anything with it, possibly because it looks so bad. They should abandon it altogether. 

[lahaye7]

12 hours ago, daveindc said:

 

Or maybe even light blue and dark green, with some yellow.

 

 

Tampa should have kept these colors all along. 

[Sport]

^The problem was those weren't the Rays colors. Their blue was darker and they leaned too heavily on black. The green and blue Rays had the right zip code, but the wrong address. Their blue was too dark to be used with that dark of a green, and they tried to cram black in there, and they made the inexplicable decision to wear black batting helmets and sometimes black hats despite having very little black anywhere in the actual uniform. Plus the way they striped everything made the blue disappear from any distance and you could no longer see it. Their idea had promise, but they blew the execution. Also vests are yuck.

 

I’m too lazy to concept this, but I’d use forest green in place of navy blue on their current set, new wordmark, new capmark, commit to either a ray of sunshine or a stingray, and outline the numbers with light blue. And I’d put the city name on the road grays. That would give them a unique look in major league baseball, make them one of 2 teams using green, instead of one in a thousand using navy blue, and it'd be a wholly unique color scheme among American professional sports. 

[DC in Da House w/o a Doubt]

I never noticed that the a logo on the hat is directly taken from the wordmark on the jersey!  Don't know how I never pieced that together.  

 

 

 

[Wally1912]

The foot at the bottom of the numeral 4 stretches down too far compared to the Braves' original. The Turn Back The Clock version looks a bit odd with that big gap of white.

 

 

[Digby]

On 8/10/2017 at 11:55 AM, the admiral said:

Did we talk about the REAL atrocity of this uniform, which is that they are insufficiently marketed to women?

 

 

The food is terrible, and such misogynistic portions!

 

I'm of two minds here -- it seems like Deadspin jumped the gun on getting pissed about this, and failed to even get a quote from MLB in the original post? I generally like their punchy style but it does get them into trouble here.

 

That said, a history of crappy marketing to women in the sports gear industry primed them for this, and it does seem stupid to launch the entire promotion without women's gear being ready. Maybe they anticipate selling this stuff during the actual weekend and not in the immediate wake of the announcement, I don't know. But the best-case, minimally-sexist explanation still seems like a merchandising coordination failure.

 

 

 

On 8/10/2017 at 10:50 PM, Fassy said:

I can't wrap my head around that fact that the MLB makes any significant profit from doing these weekend change ups. Maybe for the stars and stripes weekend... but I don't know anyone that purchased Father's Day or Mother's Day gear. Likewise, I don't personally know anyone that wants one of these uniforms (except perhaps some fellow cap collectors). How does the MLB justify the expense for these gimmicks? 

 

Have to imagine the costs are being kept down for these, which helps. I see some teams sharing templates with only different wordmark printing:

 

Cardinals/Angels/Red Sox/Braves/Twins

Orioles/Tigers/Giants

Blue Jays/Dodgers/Royals/Cubs

Padres/Brewers

 

Right there, they've cut the number of base jersey styles they need to produce by 1/3, and the introduction of that generic block font instead of having to churn out custom styles for the teams like the Red Sox and Cubs probably knocks down production styles a little further. The number font thing actually is what bothers me the most out of this whole exercise.

[gosioux76]

12 minutes ago, Digby said:

Have to imagine the costs are being kept down for these, which helps. I see some teams sharing templates with only different wordmark printing:

 

Cardinals/Angels/Red Sox/Braves/Twins

Orioles/Tigers/Giants

Blue Jays/Dodgers/Royals/Cubs

Padres/Brewers

 

Right there, they've cut the number of base jersey styles they need to produce by 1/3, and the introduction of that generic block font instead of having to churn out custom styles for the teams like the Red Sox and Cubs probably knocks down production styles a little further. The number font thing actually is what bothers me the most out of this whole exercise.

 

You're right, but I'd also imagine that the production costs on jerseys in general are probably far lower than we realize. We only look at the triple-digit retail costs and assume they're expensive to make. Not knowing the numbers, I'd bet the profit margins on those jerseys are pretty good. 

 

Also, we'd be fooling ourselves to think that this isn't a world filled with cap collectors that buy everything their team makes. I, myself, have a pretty sizable collections of Twins hats from over the years. I don't buy every novelty hat — I'm not made of money — but I certainly give every new cap a good look before coming to that conclusion. This new Little League one -- the all red cap, with the Twins logo inside an outline of Minnesota — will be hard to keep out of my collection. 

[Sport]

2 hours ago, Digby said:

The number font thing actually is what bothers me the most out of this whole exercise.

 

I think that was one of the few good decisions they made in this entire silly idea. I don't know about you, but when I was playing little league we didn't have every youth team in team specific number fonts. Every team in my league wore different colored cotton t-shirts with the team name in a generic script cursive on the front and a single color block number on the back. I was very excited in fifth grade when they stepped up their game and started getting us those shirts with the two buttons on the front. 

 

If you're going to go through with this silly little league thing then might as well really embrace every part of it, including crappy looking pullover jerseys and basic number fonts. 

[Digby]

46 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

 

I think that was one of the few good decisions they made in this entire silly idea. I don't know about you, but when I was playing little league we didn't have every youth team in team specific number fonts. Every team in my league wore different colored cotton t-shirts with the team name in a generic script cursive on the front and a single color block number on the back. I was very excited in fifth grade when they stepped up their game and started getting us those shirts with the two buttons on the front. 

 

If you're going to go through with this silly little league thing then might as well really embrace every part of it, including crappy looking pullover jerseys and basic number fonts. 

 

Oh yeah, we definitely didn't have team specific number fonts. But! We also didn't have nicknames, or any other names on the back. Or cool alternate hats. In fact the hats usually didn't match the jerseys, because the jerseys were reused for so many years -- I didn't know my history at the time, but my mid-90s stints on the Padres and Mariners both involved the then-current hats matched with jerseys in the styles of 10 years prior. My point being that I'd rather the teams do some nods to Little League (the jerseys, modified logo and nicknames seem like enough!) while maintaining a certain level of branding and professionalism. 

 

(Plus, I'd be more apt to buy a Mookie jersey if the #50 came in the usual Red Sox font. I love that font.)

[DAKINS24]

On 8/14/2017 at 2:02 PM, goalieboy82 said:

this should be there Sunday home/throwback:

or

maybe add the old Blue Jays logo to it.  

 

 

 

The current uni is so close to the OG it really wouldn't be worth it.  They would have to go back to the powder blues again.

 

The second uni doesn't make all that much sense, since the Maple Leafs baseball team still exists.

[Matito]

23 hours ago, McCarthy said:

I’m too lazy to concept this, but I’d use forest green in place of navy blue on their current set, new wordmark, new capmark, commit to either a ray of sunshine or a stingray, and outline the numbers with light blue. And I’d put the city name on the road grays. That would give them a unique look in major league baseball, make them one of 2 teams using green, instead of one in a thousand using navy blue, and it'd be a wholly unique color scheme among American professional sports. 

SFGiants58 did a concept exactly like that a while ago, and it turned out great.

[soxkrazy]

Red Sox are honoring the 1967 team tonight vs. St. Louis. Can't find anything about throwbacks. They did wear them at Busch in May. Anyone hear anything?

[The Golden One]

On 8/8/2017 at 10:42 AM, phutmasterflex said:

Just announced for next season. Will be on caps and sleeves 

 

 

The A's president already said they would go crazy with throwbacks next year for the 50th celebration.

 

Looks like they will also have a new alternate jersey. From the season ticket perks for next season. One is that you can get an "Oakland Alternate Jersey". So can start the guessing on what that will look like.

[Gothamite]

On 8/15/2017 at 10:24 PM, DAKINS24 said:

The second uni doesn't make all that much sense, since the Maple Leafs baseball team still exists.

 

Not actually the same club, but an amateur team that borrowed the name once the Maple Leafs left.