Marlins93

Why does it feel like the Nationals change things up way more frequently than other teams do?

I don't believe the "brand visibility" angle. At least the way, it's been voiced as a main driver for the logo being relocated.

MLB is getting paid a billion dollars by Nike for this contract, so it seems like MLB is basically letting them do almost whatever they want in terms of cost-cutting measures. And rolling out gimmicks like City Connect.

I am guessing that the more economical (and "efficient") template design is the culprit. Nike engineered it with such narrow plackets, that MLB was forced to either accept a smaller logo or relocate it. They opted for the latter option to sustain "brand visibility."

It's shocking how much Nike is screwing this up. It really makes you wonder how much money they are actually saving from manufacturing and materials costs. 

I don't think the Diamondback's ST hat matches well with their jersey. Given the red logo and numbers, they need a red hat. There's not enough teal-ish color in their jersey for that hat to work.

I don't think anyone is overreacting. Based on the photos I'm seeing, this is a total disaster. These jerseys look cheap and counterfeit in every photo. And I don't like the reduced size NOBs from  the Marlins' photos. Reminds me of those children's jerseys.

The Phillies City Connects should be made to look like Duracell batteries. Black pants, black jerseys, tan hat with squatchee made to look like a cathode button top.

3 hours ago, WSU151 said:

 

Pretty sure it’s original teal. Far more green than their current blue.  The original teal goes with the retro vibe of the most of the collection.  Note, too, the silver in the logo (like original palette) instead of the current gray. 

Definitely seems like the original teal to me.

I am a big fan of the spring training hat designs this year. They aren't all perfect, but at least this is a good concept. Much better than the trucker hat gimmick and that hilariously bad "logo within a logo" concept they tried for a few years. That was "launch it into the sun" bad.

It's cool to see the Marlins with a blue hat. It's a nice change of pace from the mostly black/monochrome design aesthetic I associate with this set. However, the hat exposes some of the major design flaws with that logo, that have always bothered me.

Basically the "M" logo doesn't really work well with other backgrounds that are not black. This was the case with the "old" blue jersey, too. It utilizes those blue/red double outlines that required a white trim in order to place it upon a blue background. Seeing the blue, red, and white together creates a kind of awkward eyesore.

If you look at the other logos in this hat collection, you notice how so few of them have white trim. And the other ones that do (Atlanta, for example), are much easier on the eyes.

I appreciate the Marlins trying to upgrade this set and emphasize the color more, but it's really not worth saving IMO.

25 minutes ago, dont care said:

This is the uniform they’d make if the Replacements was a baseball movie

It's giving me serious "Washington Baseball Team" vibes.

4 hours ago, Digby said:

There, I fixed it.

 

You have to assume they actually thought of this and made a textile prototype. I wonder why they didn't think it was viable. I'm curious to see what a "real" version would look like.

The more I reflect on the black jersey change, the more I sour on the decision to make white lettering. It's a total mismatch with the hat design, too.

5 hours ago, MJD7 said:

The Marlins do seem to be in a Padres-like situation where most of the fans clearly want to go back to the original color scheme, but ownership seems to not want to.

 

For me, having no tie to the Marlins, my only hesitation would be in not wanting to lose that gorgeous blue color, while going to a color another team already has (the Mariners). If Charlotte ends up getting an expansion team, I'd fully support them adopting that blue (essentially, the Knights' new color scheme) and the Marlins going back to teal. 

 

I also think teal & black on its own can get a bit drab at times, even with a larger presence of teal. My solution, as I've mentioned, would be to add a little bit of pink: it'd be perfect for Miami, and would even tie to a bit of unknown history that they were almost named the Flamingos. 

Although the Marlins and Mariners both unveiled new brandings in 1993, I still contend that the Marlins "wore it first" especially since their announcement came months earlier.

I also think the shade of "teal" is distinct enough for both teams and I actually don't even consider the Mariners' Northwest Green to be teal per se, anyway.

But I definitely disagree with any notion that the Marlins should back away from teal because of the Mariners. And I also don't think the "Miami blue" shade is *that* good.

In no shape or form would I consider *this* drab:

1 hour ago, MJD7 said:

 

It was the perfect opportunity to hop onto the Heat's "Vice" jersey hype, and do them one better by making it the full-time set, but they blew it. 

 

I actually really like the current scripts, they feel like a perfect blend of the original Marlins' set and the more modern vibe of the 2012-2018 set.

 

 

Or they could just go back to a color scheme that is clearly preferred (teal) and one that no Marlins fan wanted to get rid of. They have only been teal-less for so many years due to owner hubris.

NYC carpetbagger Jeffrey Loria decided to Yankee-fy the Marlins original uniform set as soon as he bought the team. They were still technically a "teal" team but it was basically BFBS with teal very attenuated. He got rid of it altogether when the new stadium opened just because he wanted to flex his ego and put his stamp on things. Jeter did exactly the same thing when he bought the team.

I feel like the team bosses just doesn't get it. They are not gaining any extra revenue by having this soulless identity trotted out since 2019 that most fans merely tolerate on the basis of "hey, at least the blue jersey is cool!" Look around Marlins Park on game day. Most people are either wearing City Connects or vintage teal.

2 hours ago, SilverBullet1929 said:

So you're gonna hate this but, I have a friend who is a season ticket holder and he's the kind of guy with no shame in asking what he needs to ask, he's also a huge fan of the original Marlins look like you are, well today at Fan Fest he asked about the teal throwbacks that were worn last year and he was told they would not be returning and of course he asked why... this could be BS but this is the answer he got: that the throwback Fridays didn't really make a difference in ticket or merchandise sales so when having to cut a jersey due to Nike's rules on limiting how many jerseys are available, the throwback jersey was chosen to be cut. 

I believe every word of this, but if I were your friend, I would have been incensed enough with that reasoning to push back. I went to a fair amount of games in 2023 and it was pretty obvious that the amount of teal gear on sale was pathetic at best. Sure they were selling the New Era teal cap, but jersey-wise it was slim pickings. That bizarre Andre Dawson Mitchell & Ness jersey (no idea how they landed on him to rep the team) and a Willis home jersey c. 2003, but they went most of the season without a replica of the 1993-2002 jerseys worn by the players on sale in the team store. And when they did start selling them, very late into the season, they seemed to rarely be in stock.

If the merchandise sales seemed limited, it's because there was no merchandise. The online store was even worse.

On top of that, I can't imagine the thought process of anyone who thinks a White Sox Marlins black alternate would sell better than a vintage teal throwback.

Again, this f'n team, man.

2 hours ago, SilverBullet1929 said:

One more Marlins thought that could be very possible and would very much not be cool. We don't know that this nice blue jersey is for game use. There's a chance that this only replaces the previous blue jersey and thus could just be a new BP/ST jersey. 

 

I'm only guessing but that feels like it could definitely be possible.

 

Also possible that the old blue is still kept for ST and that maybe the road gray was dropped?

 

Just saying we still don't know what these are for.

 

We saw 3 jerseys today so the question is, which is the 4th jersey, the road gray or the old blue one... or does the BP jersey not count towards the 4 and maybe it's still around too? Gosh I despise that 4+1 jersey rule.

I hear you, but as others have mentioned, there seems to be enough fanfare around this unveiling that the blue one has to be for game use. We shall see.

14 minutes ago, tp49 said:

The Marlins should make the blue jersey their home.  When I toured Marlins Park two weeks ago I was saying to the guide that they should do exactly what they did to the blue jersey.  Now I know why I got the look I did.

The blue jersey is honestly quite nice and definitely the best of the four. Much improved from the first iteration. I am glad they decided to go with the "Marlins" wordmark instead of the "Miami" one. The obsession with focusing on "Miami" for the brand identity always bothered me; this is something they started doing back in 2012.

On top of that, the "Marlins" wordmark also looks nicer than the "Miami" one does with the font style they selected.

But I will ask again: if they Marlins have a nice blue jersey in the rotation that people clearly wanted, why does a White Sox black & white alternate even need to exist at all?

I know I'm always a total wet blanket about the current Marlins' identity, but the changes made to the black jersey are lateral at best. They basically "upgraded" an illegible jersey by making it totally bland. It's literally a black and white jersey (with the tiniest amount of accenting), almost akin to something that the White Sox would wear.

Now I'm beginning to wonder: why does a black jersey even need to exist at all? They very comically touted their "colores" when they unveiled this misfire of a set back in 2018 and one of their four jerseys has practically no trace of their "Miami blue" and "caliente red."

If there is some new rule about limiting the number of jersey combinations, just get rid of the black jersey entirely. It's never going to work. Just stick with the white, the grey, the blue, and a teal throwback Friday as your four. It sure seems like they aren't doing throwbacks this year, despite how wildly popular they were in 2023.

This f'n team, man.

2 hours ago, SilverBullet1929 said:

Players today wore the same caps for their media day but that just means the home cap and jersey combo isn't changing. It's possible there's alternate caps but I doubt it myself. The caps never bothered me like the jerseys. I think the caps are visible enough and there's other teams with cap logos that are the same color as the crown and I don't think they look bad. 

 

The black jersey was a bigger issue because you literally couldn't read them on TV or from any distance.

 

Again, we'll know tomorrow evening. 

The hat is legible, I'd say. At least more so than the black jersey. It just has too little color to "pop" in the way that it should. I'd be shocked but pleasantly surprised if they unveiled new hats. I'm getting the impression they're just fixing the egregious design flaws with these two jerseys as they transition to the new templates. Could explain why it's being done this offseason, in particular. 

It will be nice to see the blue jersey redesigned as such. It's basically the adjustment that several of us here have been clamoring for. The first ST/BP jersey looked pretty rough with just that hideous logo slapped on the breast.

While I appreciate the effort to improve upon the legibility of the black alternate, in the end it's still a mostly "black and white" set (with some slight accents), almost like the black alternate they wore from 2012 through 2018.

The black one is a tiny upgrade, the blue a substantial upgrade, but I'm still not enthusiastic about this branding at all. I'd give anything to have it mothballed completely.

I haven't been able to keep up with all of the new-template talk, so forgive me if this has been already broached. Am I crazy, or do the new template replicas in most photos seem way more wrinkly than they should be? To my eye, the material looks cheap and flimsy.

The Yankees should wear academic regalia as their City Connects, based on what I've just learned.

8 hours ago, MJD7 said:

If the Pirates' jersey spelled out "Pittsburgh," instead of the silly abbreviation, I'd be perfectly happy with it (again, apart from the batting helmet). A gold jersey with black pants is a welcome readdition to the Pirates' rotation. 

 

To summarize, each of the jerseys you mentioned definitely have their flaws, like many jerseys do in our eyes, but I wouldn't call any of them complete fails, like many of the recent NBA City jerseys have been.

The obnoxious PGH on the Pirates City Connect is not just "a flaw" it's a hideous abomination that also doesn't have any real local connection. It's just a lazy fabrication by Nike, which rings true for the other misfires I've flagged. Yes, it's the official abbreviation for Pittsburgh, but it's not something that's cherished or embraced among locals. And the Pirates don't need a Nike marketing gimmick in order to introduce a gold jersey into their rotation. It's already one of their team colors.

Anyway, I think you are understating the extent to these "flaws." IMO they are absolute fails. 

There's a handful of strong to decent jersey concepts in the mix, but I wouldn't place the MLB version of this on a much higher pedestal than I would the NBA's.

2 hours ago, MJD7 said:

Only a few are real stinkers (Baltimore, Dodgers, San Diego).

I'd add the Brewers, Reds, Giants, Braves (lazy), and maybe even the Red Sox to that list.  Pirates are among the absolute worst, too, even aside from the batting helmets. The Braves is basically a derivative knock-off of a throwback.

City Connect might be a commercial success for Nike but generally speaking, it's a massive artistic/design failure IMO. I like the Marlins' City Connects, but I applaud a team like the Yankees for not participating. There's maybe only a handful of City Connects introduced around the league so far that I consider to be passable.

It looks like a cheaply made jersey when I zoom in.

1 hour ago, Digby said:

 

Yeah, I think this is just a thing that the merch people have been doing. Can't find it now on a quick Google, but I've definitely seen some Red Sox merch using the City stencil wordmark, just recolored in classic navy and red.

Yes, in the MLB flagship store, this teal iteration of the Marlins City Connects (a shirt, not a jersey mind you) was displayed with color variations of City Connects for other teams as well. I remember the Padres and Angels being there. Definitely something that merch people do.

17 hours ago, Anubis2051 said:

 

 

So I would agree that I don't think this is happening, however today I was in the MLB store in NYC and there was lots of city connect Marlins gear recolored to teal. Notably one tshirt was the crown logo, with the Florida fish logo (the round one) on the sleeve. 

I was in that store not long ago myself while I was on a business trip and saw those items you mentioned. The hat I believe has been for sale online for awhile now. So I don't think it's a new item. I don't see the shirt for sale online, though.

I will also point out that I recall the MLB flagship store had a ton of the regular red and blue City Connect stuff too. I didn't get the impression that this teal reimagining was replacing it. I'd chalk it up to the "fashion" category that provides alternatives to the field worn stuff, but that's just my hunch.

52 minutes ago, monkeypower said:

I think the Marlins current colours are great, it's the application that stinks with only thin slivers of colour.

 

Also, the stitching in the logo is dumb and the placement has made me think the marlin needs to visit a urologist.

The logo is just a mess. Too much black, inexplicable rightward lean, and an uncanny valley wordmark that feels like an AI rendition of a script.

Also, if you look closely at the center version of the "M" version of this, the fish's tail is deliberately truncated in a way that bothers me.  It seems like the designer didn't want more overlap in the center of the M, but it just looks so sloppy and half-assed to me.