Marlins93

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.

5 hours ago, Michael Bolton said:

 

I watch a fair amount of games and I feel like I see more 2012-2018 gear in the stands than the current look too. Or maybe it's about even, but definitely enough to stand out to me.

I agree with this. By my estimate, among the four identities (retro Florida Marlins, City Connect, 2012-2018, and the present branding), you are least likely to encounter someone wearing their current, everyday set. It seems pretty obvious that it never really generated much enthusiasm from the start and our fanbase never really grew into it.

5 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

I think the Marlins branding is a really odd case.  I really love the colors -- the combo of black, pink and a bright aqua is unique.  But the super black-heavy way it's applied makes it lose all the vibrancy of those other colors. Just drowns it out and makes everything look drab and hard to read. 

 

I agree that the easiest, and more popular move, would be a return to the retro branding. Moreso, I'd like to see some modernization of it, akin to what San Diego and Minnesota did with their rebrands.  Come to think of it, the current design of the uniforms might have been a good modernization of the old look had they reverted to the original colors. 

 

At the very least, I'd like to see some color redistribution with their current look. I think there's some really strong potential there that's lost in a sea of black. 

The colors aren't bad and they are unique shades of red and blue, but they are still a "red and blue team." No other team in MLB is wearing shades like those, but the OG teal was more distinctive, even if the Mariners and Diamondbacks have variations on teal shades.

But for me the biggest problem wit the current identity is that the logos are absolutely ghastly. I can deal with the colors, but they really need to come up with a better wordmark.

On 12/5/2023 at 12:44 PM, marlinfan said:

A personal contact within the Marlins FO indicated they were workshopping new colors over the summer as part of a City Connect refresh.  They weren’t sure if this was for 2024 or 2025.

Not calling BS, but this seems weird for a number of reasons. First of all, those colors are purported to have significance for the "Sugar Kings" history, so it seems hard to swap them out with the tired and cliche vice colors, for example. 

And the Marlins have one of the few City Connect identities that's objectively good and universally praised. If you walk around the ballpark, it's pretty obvious that those sell well. I suppose Nike could be trying to do something more like what they do with the NBA. Basically replacing the city jerseys frequently even if they are popular.

What baffles me the most is that the Marlins would be entering their sixth season (in 2024), with this horrific rebrand instituted after Jeter's group bought the team. Now that the dust is settled, I really don't think this current identity is appreciated by the fanbase. If you walk around Marlins Park, far more people are wearing City Connects or OG Florida Marlins stuff. I'm very vocal in my hatred for this branding, but I genuinely don't think the look has been warmly embraced by the fanbase. And most fans would like some kind of return to the retro branding on a larger scale than sporadic throwback nights.

Somebody got paid money (I presume US dollars) to design that.

What an atrocious jersey concept. Really nothing positive could be said about it IMO. Nike has been on a cold streak. I hated what they did for the Braves.

8 hours ago, Digby said:

I'm also a fan of classic Marlins teal (though I remain upset that I have yet to find a black/teal Portland Sea Dogs hat from that era). Beyond the color, though, I don't have a lot of affinity for the design. The serif fonts are corny and dated, the marlin logo itself is kinda funny but falls into the same trap as Baltimore's bird hat of the era, being too realist to work well in its context. Either of their current wordmarks/logos might make for a decent mashup with the teal to get the best of all worlds. It's just a little confusing since -- leaving aside the design critiques of the newer identities -- they've been leaning so hard into a Miami aesthetic (neon and Art Deco and nods to Latin culture) but the original teal era feels so General Florida Burbs aesthetic to me, particularly of that 90s era when the traditionalist snowbirds from the North really flew in.

The serifs always seem to be the biggest complaint that people have about the design. I know that flat, sans-serif designs are more en vogue these days, but I don't mind the Marlins' fonts one bit. Same goes for the Rockies too. To some extent, I think these clubs should simply own the fact that they are 90s expansion teams. The Rockies' greatest sin is that they haven't owned purple enough.

Anyway, the Marlins wordmark just works for me. It's legible, unique, and has a kind of aquatic vibe to it.

An Art Deco aesthetic could have worked in theory, but the color elements in the 2012 rebrand were a total miss. Wrong colors and too much emphasis on black and white.

I also never liked the minimalist fish in the 2012 rebrand. It just looked too abstract and oddly detailed from the Art Deco M. Like it was tacked on or something. The 2019 rebrand isn't much better in that regard and convinces me that a return to the more "realistic" design aesthetic is the way to go.

Admittedly, the Florida Marlins logo is more intricate and "realist" in comparison to other MLB logos, but I never really thought it posed a problem. In fact, I find it to scale much better than the current logo does. I also don't feel that the 2019 rebrand leans into a Miami aesthetic much at all, unless you want to make the claim that the shades of red and blue are semi-"Vice" colors. 

Anyway, if the Marlins were going for a teal rebrand, there really isn't much I'd salvage from the 2012 and 2019 identities. Those were both colossal misfires and not exactly warmly received by fans.

33 minutes ago, Sport said:

 

I merely like it. The number treatment keeps it from being top tier for me. 

 

They should've just used the same double outline numbers from the home uniforms  and I'm not really sure why they didn't. 

 

 

I prefer the road jerseys more without the double outline. I believe the rationale was to differentiate the numbers more from the wordmark, which had a prominent white outline.

That's one element that works really well for me, in fact.

1 hour ago, Sport said:

I never had much affection for the Goofy Giants Marlins look they had when they first went to the Miami Marlins moniker, but it's a masterpiece compared to the current uniform, which is like if seasonal depression were a baseball uniform. 

 

I am a huge fan of their 1997 uniforms with both the full sleeved look and the vested look. I think that was the best balance of those colors. The road uniform was a unique, but attractive look itself, but its arched wordmark was inferior to the later Florida script that matched the home script, unfortunately that coincided with the flip to a black heavy look so they never got it 100% perfect. I want to love the all-teal hats, but the originals were so bright and so pastel that they looked goofy in helmet form. The hats and helmets they wore on Friday look great in HD and maybe that's the whole difference, but these ones look and feel far more saturated and I thought it looked great. 

I actually love this jersey. I think it's highly underrated, too. I'd love to see it on the field again, especially if they pair it with the teal hats with the black brims.

I would suggest reducing the thickness of the white outline, though. That's always been the main defect for me, but it still passes the eye test either way.

22 hours ago, the admiral said:

The teal does look better in HD, but I cannot understate just how terrible the Marlins' current uniforms are, especially the illegible black ones, which even HD can't fix. The throwbacks are that much better in comparison.

 

The first Miami set had such wasted potential.

I've railed over the rebrand (2019 to the present) since its introduction, and I still feel that it is bottom three in all of MLB. If you look around the park, most fans are either wearing the City Connects or old school teal. I don't think that the rebrand ever really caught on or was warmly embraced by the fanbase. Now that Jeter is gone, hopefully it can be scrapped.

19 hours ago, FiddySicks said:

It’s probably a little bit of both, but the original Marlins set was definitely very good for what it was. They often didn’t execute it it properly, and therefore it had a sweet spot and they only really seemed to hit it for a short time. The logo from that era has always been strong, but they kind of debuted that look with too much emphasis on that teal color, and slowly dialed it back until there essentially was no teal left at all. I’d say the perfect era for that set was the 1997 World Series, or somewhere just after that. 
 

During this stretch they still had the teal pinstripes and wordmarks outlined in teal. But it was balanced with the black helmets and caps and black names and numbers. 
 

 

I used to think that 1996-2002 was the best era for the team's uniforms, but the teal throwback hats worn on Friday and during the 25th anniversary celebration in 2018 have reassured me that's the best look for the franchise. Back in 1993 they might have looked a bit dorky due to materials, sizing, and MLB fashion trends, but they look very much at home now in 2023.

7 hours ago, adsarebad said:

There also could have been room for both of them, Astros were orange, marlins were a different shade...... mandarin, i would say.  It was a very nice color. 

 

Same goes for their matching jersey, a shame "The Marlins Man" made it so hated, 

Fans didn't turn on orange because of Marlins Man. It was a reviled decision from the very beginning. The entire fanbase collectively dry heaved the moment the 2012 uniforms were unveiled. It's so strange that they made orange, the color of all of those empty seats in the old football stadium, a major part of their new identity. It's very telling that the orange hats were hardly worn, even if they technically remained part of the official uniform set.

On 4/1/2023 at 11:22 PM, coco1997 said:

I wonder how much the love for Miami's teal throwbacks comes from genuine admiration for their design, and how much is nostalgia-driven in light of all the inferior uniforms the team has worn since. 

I can't speak for all Marlins fans, of course, but I genuinely feel that the design aesthetics are incredible. The design is very fitting for the South Florida market and breathes much-needed life into MLB logos uniforms, which are oversaturated with variations of red and blue.

Some don't like the Florida Marlins wordmark, but I love it. I'm glad that it doesn't have the same kind of old timey cursive script that most teams have. It's kind of a modern take on that tradition. And it's more elegantly executed that the AI-generated, oddly-tilted script that the jerseys of the most recent rebrand have. 

The teal flat-out works, even 30 years later, and is a much-needed addition to the league's rather narrow color palette.  The teal wordmark pops beautifully and the black front numbers are a nice complementary balance. 

I am also sold on the teal caps working, too. I used to think that if the Marlins were to bring back some rendition of the "teal look," they'd need to do so with the black caps that became primary in 1996, but now I'm convinced that teal hats are the way to go.

Tell me this isn't gorgeous:

2 hours ago, CaliforniaGlowin said:

that color looks great on TV

It looks better than their spring training jersey blue does on TV, too.

Teal looks amazing in 2023. I can see why people thought it looked a bit dorky in 1993, but with current sizing/fitting trends among players, high definition TV, modern textiles and materials, it looks utterly gorgeous now. Even the all-teal helmets looked remarkable. 

It's hard to imagine the Marlins wanting to wear anything but this color scheme. Believe, this is what the majority of the fanbase wants, too.

12 hours ago, Old School Fool said:

This is really really good. First City Connect of the year and we already have a good one.

 

 

I strongly disagree, but to each their own. These are bottom tier City Connects because they are basically lesser versions of the Braves throwbacks. I feel like this is the first design that closely clung to existing design elements.

I like those Braves throwbacks but if you see these on the field, you just wish they'd be wearing the throwbacks instead.

Anyway, these feel like the laziest City Connects we've seen thus far. Major thumbs down from me.

1 minute ago, FiddySicks said:

Ok so weird thing about those Marlins throwback hats in 2018. That was the time when New Era was starting to fully shut down  their US production and the hats were listed as US made polyester. I’m not sure about the player issued caps, but the fan issued caps were decidedly NOT US made poly. They actually had a surplus of the old wool stock material from somewhere, and just used that with their new poly hat construction. I have one and it’s just about the strangest cap I own. It looks like a newer cap, but it feels thin and almost brittle. Sort of how a cap from 30 years ago feels. 

I remember some of the discussions about this. If I recall correctly, the players wore US-made hats. And even some of that inventory found its way unto retail shelves for purchase. But the majority of those for the fans were made overseas. The one I own is foreign-made. I remember it feeling strange myself.

Okay, so I think the 1993 hats were made by Sports Specialties, but New Era took over in 1994, when MLB granted them the exclusive license.

Oh, also, I am pretty sure that a white outline around the logo wasn't applied until later as well. That was added in addition to re-centering the logo. Here is what an authentic 1993 hat looked like, apparently. Although something about the silver here looks faded.

3 minutes ago, FiddySicks said:

I have several old Marlins caps from that era (which I found mostly at a swap meet in Southern California, of all places), and one or two of them have the logo centered on the seam and they look very out of place and strange. If I can find them this afternoon, I’ll post a picture. The early era of that brand (and the Rockies brand, too) was sort of a mess in terms of material construction. The batterman logos are all different and quirky, too. 

Yes, I forgot the name of the company that made those hats for 1993. I used to know it.

I feel like people would appreciate the teal aesthetic from 1993 a lot more if the material construction were better. IMO the color wasn't the problem. The manufacturer just dropped the ball and made some dad hats with oddly placed logos.

The teal New Era hats worn by the players in 2018 looked amazing.

3 minutes ago, WSU151 said:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CqLYKGLMHKW/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

 

Marlins with an IG post with more pics of the 93 unis…weirdly, some hats have the F logo centered on the seam, and some hats have the F logo off-set due to the logo’s balance. New Era should have figured this out. 

I noticed those, too. My understanding is that the very first hats back in 1993 were centered on the logo itself rather than the F. This was later adjusted to have it centered around the F. I personally think it looks better centered around the F.

In those photos, the hats centered around the logo appear very vintage to me. Made out of wool and everything. I wouldn't be surprised if they either had a supply of c. 1993 hats in their warehouse or procured vintage ones for this photo op. Not saying this was necessarily a deliberate decision. I'd speculate it was simply what they had to work with until New Era manufactured the hats for game use.

I'm on cloud nine over the Flashback Fridays for the Marlins. Long overdue!

The current Derek Jeter identity still hasn't caught on for me. I think as little of it it as the day as it was unveiled. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of the fanbase yearns for a return to teal permanently. The shade of blue is interesting but not that interesting.

5 hours ago, GhostOfNormMacdonald said:

I think the Mariners and Marlins have the best of the bunch, if only because they are clean and have better contrast than most if the other caps. I swear, most of these logos are illegible

It's basically the existing Marlins ST logo but without the minimal red it had in it. That's probably why it seems to work more than others.

13 minutes ago, TBGKon said:

In regards to the Marlins pinstripes, if these are throwback pants/jerseys I'm curious why send them to Jupiter for spring training.  Unless theyre having a throwback to the 20th anniversary of the beginning of Marlins spring training in Jupiter (2003 was the first season after the Expos and Marlins swapped spring sites because of the sale to Jeffrey Loria).

Perhaps the teal pinstripes would be there for photo shoots? Not the official player photos, necessarily, but for other reasons? Perhaps promotions for anniversary festivities later in the season?

Keep in mind, there's only one pinstripes jersey in that Twitter image. And I don't see any pants with it. I'm trying to keep my expectations low for this very reason.

2 minutes ago, coco1997 said:

 

That's the thing, though. The Heat wear these colors only occasionally, but to this point have withheld from committing to them full time. If done properly, it's a color scheme the Fish could totally own. 

Even so, the Vice look is kind of derivative. I think it works much better in small doses, like how the Heat do it, for this very reason. I wouldn't want my team's full-time identity to be a cliche set by an 80s TV show.

The Marlins had a solid identity that worked once before. I'd speculate that a majority of fans want it back in some shape or form. 

3 minutes ago, coco1997 said:

 

Give me THIS:
 

 

Meh, it's basically a Miami Heat City Edition copycat.  I understand why people like that look, but it's not for me. A bit too much of a cliche.

Just now, coco1997 said:

The Marlins should absolutely have a home alternate in that gorgeous shade of blue they use (think these but with front numbers added) but yeah, they are not a powder blue team. 

At this point, just give me teal. Forget the blue.

8 minutes ago, CaliforniaGlowin said:

So many teams are adding powder blue and the Marlins are holding theirs back

Why would the Marlins wear powder blue? Makes no sense.

2 minutes ago, WSU151 said:

 

Also the 20th anniversary of the 2003 WS; hopefully they bring out the 93 set instead of the black/white/silver/speck-of-teal 2003 home jersey. 

In the photo at least, they sure seem to be teal pinstripes. I am trying to contain my excitement because I have a hunch that this won't amount to anything aside from an anniversary weekend at most.

It's unfortunate that Marlins fans have been deprived of teal for over a decade now.

1 hour ago, WSU151 said:

Marlins posted this a couple of days ago on Twitter, and  many noticed the same thing in the replies... the Marlins have a pinstriped jersey on the truck to Jupiter...although the front is hidden, I don't think it's a Hammerheads jersey:

 

 

In the Marlins' press release for their Fanfest event on February 11, they mention a "surprise announcement from Jeff Conine." 2023 will also be the club's 30th anniversary, so I expect them to do something.

It'd be shocked if they bring back the teal pinstripes in any kind of semi-regular rotation, but I could see them holding some kind of 30th anniversary weekend where they wear the throwbacks.

2023 will be year five of the Derek Jeter rebrand and it still has not grown on me one bit. It's cold, sterile, and filled with inelegant design touches.