MLB 2016 Changes

[mjd77]

This shirsey implements the turquoise combo better than most of the jerseys do.

This might be how the jerseys look on the field. Since we've only really seen them so far against a black background and the lighting is likely different from actual games.

I'm not sure I like this color scheme as much as I initially thought I did. Getting rid of the red and using black/copper/turquoise would have been so much better, IMO. The sedona red just doesn't work for me.

[Gothamite]

That would have been gorgeous.

[Crabcake]

That would have been gorgeous.

+1

[FinsUp1214]

I've sat a little longer on Arizona and tried to look at the set a little more objectively; and I do think there is potential in the turquoise-trimmed alternates. Had that been the primary set, you'd still have your "evolution" aspects with the snakeskin pattern and the cut piping, but those aspects were much more tastefully done and not nearly as overboard as the primaries went. It fits a whole lot better with professional baseball aesthetics while taking the leap they wanted to take. If you cut those ghastly primaries completely out of the picture, the alternates make a good core to build around. That should have been what they went with, if that was a choice.

One thing that still troubles me, however (outside of the primaries; again, I have nothing good to say about them), is this: one of the things that irks me most about uniforms and identities in this day and age is how disconnected brands tend to look these days. Example: when watching an Oregon home or bowl game, and Oregon is in black, steel, and gold trim (or some other non traditional combo) while most of their fans are wearing green and gold. When you make your fans look like they showed up to the wrong game, that is not a good thing at all. I can see this happening to some extent with the Diamondbacks now. Not exactly like Oregon per se (that's a much more extreme example), but when you have basically two separate sets within your current identity (three if you want to count the throwback), you really look you're having an identity crisis. What are you? Sedona red and black? Or wait, black, turquoise and red? But you have purple in your history and still cling to it too on occasion? Wait, one day you want to look like a Tron reject, but the next you'll trot out in something cleaner as if yesterday was a mistake? And heck, with all the different colors and eras Arizona's trying to hold onto right now, their home crowd is going to look like a bag of Southwestern M&M's.

There just isn't much strength to this brand, at least in my opinion. I just can't tell who or what they want to be. You know what you're getting with a strong brand, and it's united. Arizona in my opinion, however, is terribly disjointed and strewn around, and it's obvious. And awful.

[Shumway]

This shirsey implements the turquoise combo better than most of the jerseys do.

While I'd prefer them to feature red over black, this actually looks great.

I was in phone when I looked at these initially and didn't notice the pattern on the caps. I really don't like that, but I can live with the rest of it. Is it the worst set in baseball? Probably, but it's different.

[larrypep]

Zack Grienke just signed a $206M deal with the D-Backs. $6M to pitch and $200M guaranteed to wear these monstrosities.

[jrodsep]

Zack Grienke just signed a $206M deal with the D-Backs. $6M to pitch and $200M guaranteed to wear these monstrosities.

What if he was mesmerized by the update and made the choice to pitch there because of them

[davidmiller5]

I've sat a little longer on Arizona and tried to look at the set a little more objectively; and I do think there is potential in the turquoise-trimmed alternates. Had that been the primary set, you'd still have your "evolution" aspects with the snakeskin pattern and the cut piping, but those aspects were much more tastefully done and not nearly as overboard as the primaries went. It fits a whole lot better with professional baseball aesthetics while taking the leap they wanted to take. If you cut those ghastly primaries completely out of the picture, the alternates make a good core to build around. That should have been what they went with, if that was a choice.

One thing that still troubles me, however (outside of the primaries; again, I have nothing good to say about them), is this: one of the things that irks me most about uniforms and identities in this day and age is how disconnected brands tend to look these days. Example: when watching an Oregon home or bowl game, and Oregon is in black, steel, and gold trim (or some other non traditional combo) while most of their fans are wearing green and gold. When you make your fans look like they showed up to the wrong game, that is not a good thing at all. I can see this happening to some extent with the Diamondbacks now. Not exactly like Oregon per se (that's a much more extreme example), but when you have basically two separate sets within your current identity (three if you want to count the throwback), you really look you're having an identity crisis. What are you? Sedona red and black? Or wait, black, turquoise and red? But you have purple in your history and still cling to it too on occasion? Wait, one day you want to look like a Tron reject, but the next you'll trot out in something cleaner as if yesterday was a mistake? And heck, with all the different colors and eras Arizona's trying to hold onto right now, their home crowd is going to look like a bag of Southwestern M&M's.

There just isn't much strength to this brand, at least in my opinion. I just can't tell who or what they want to be. You know what you're getting with a strong brand, and it's united. Arizona in my opinion, however, is terribly disjointed and strewn around, and it's obvious. And awful.

This is exactly right. I'm not against the Diamondbacks pushing the boundaries of what MLB jerseys look like. They--along with the Rockies, Rays, and Marlins--don't have long histories and can get away with looking for unique and modern elements. (I have no problem with the Marlins redesign for this reason...not the biggest fan of how it looks, but I can appreciate with what they are trying to do.)

But what I don't like is the different color schemes. How can you effectively build a brand if you can't even decide what colors you want to wear. I'm not talking about teams that decide to change color schemes, I'm referring to Arizona when they decide they are a black, turquoise, and red team some days and on others say they are a black, red, and sand team. Pick one. I could get used to either (I didn't think I would say that until seeing the shirsee shown above).

I must say I don't even like it when teams regularly wear a throwback that is a different color scheme. D-backs, you chose to go away from the purple (again, I'm not debating whether or not they should have brought back the purple), but you wear it one day a week. If you really want to wear purple in your uniforms, incorporate it in all your jerseys. I'm also looking at you, Padres. What are you? On the road you are only navy; at home you are blue and yellow...except for when you become a brown and yellow team for one day a week. I think they should go back to brown, but if you choose navy and yellow, build that brand. (Yes, I know this year is an experimental year, so they somewhat of a unique case.) Then there is the camo, but I won't even get into that here.

[Gothamite]

I agree. It drives me crazy that the Brewers won't commit to their throwback scheme. I'm pretty sure the Padres will to theirs.

And as for the Soviet camo unis - the less said the better. At least the Mets appear to have wised up.

[davidmiller5]

Yep. The Brewers are another example; they want it both ways. When I went to a game in Milwaukee the other year, there was more old ball-in-glove merchandise being worn, displayed, etc. than their current identity. But again, pick one and stick with it.

[Gothamite]

All anecdotal evidence indicates that the retro Brewers stuff outsells the modern. But apparently the modern sells just well enough to keep around so the team can double-dip.

[davidmiller5]

And this is why teams do it. If you can sell two completely different sets, your sales will most likely go up. So for organizations, it comes down to revenue versus brand consistency. It doesn't take an economics major to figure out which one will win out.

[mjd77]

All anecdotal evidence indicates that the retro Brewers stuff outsells the modern. But apparently the modern sells just well enough to keep around so the team can double-dip.

And that's exactly why we will never see the BiG back full time...it would cut into the huge money they make in retro gear sales. Then again, going modern retro seems to have worked in Houston and Toronto. What I wish the Brewers would do, in order to have more cohesive branding, would be to rebrand with a new modern look, changing the colors back to royal/varsity gold. That way, they can still have retro nights with the BiG/pinstripe gear, but at least the color scheme would remain basically the same throughout. From day 1, I've never liked the current navy/old gold scheme anyway. The sooner they make that go away, the better.

[The_Admiral]

Let's hope that the invisible hand and/or D-bags management winnows out some of these extra uniforms and gets the set down to the turquoise-red-black stuff, because that's clearly their most interesting and most lacking dot-matrix-gradient pants.

[WSU151]

All anecdotal evidence indicates that the retro Brewers stuff outsells the modern. But apparently the modern sells just well enough to keep around so the team can double-dip.

And that's exactly why we will never see the BiG back full time...it would cut into the huge money they make in retro gear sales. Then again, going modern retro seems to have worked in Houston and Toronto. What I wish the Brewers would do, in order to have more cohesive branding, would be to rebrand with a new modern look, changing the colors back to royal/varsity gold. That way, they can still have retro nights with the BiG/pinstripe gear, but at least the color scheme would remain basically the same throughout. From day 1, I've never liked the current navy/old gold scheme anyway. The sooner they make that go away, the better.

Going retro full time would cut into their retro gear sales?

[BBTV]

All anecdotal evidence indicates that the retro Brewers stuff outsells the modern. But apparently the modern sells just well enough to keep around so the team can double-dip.

And that's exactly why we will never see the BiG back full time...it would cut into the huge money they make in retro gear sales. Then again, going modern retro seems to have worked in Houston and Toronto. What I wish the Brewers would do, in order to have more cohesive branding, would be to rebrand with a new modern look, changing the colors back to royal/varsity gold. That way, they can still have retro nights with the BiG/pinstripe gear, but at least the color scheme would remain basically the same throughout. From day 1, I've never liked the current navy/old gold scheme anyway. The sooner they make that go away, the better.

Going retro full time would cut into their retro gear sales?

Right. Now you have current + retro. If they switch to retro full time, retro becomes current, and there's no retro. So the proposed solution of adopting the retro colors, or a fauxback is probably the best (from a merch standpoint at least) because you still get the current + retro sales.

[SCalderwood]

No, I still think Walgreens. They had it for decades before Washington tried to appropriate their logo in a "baseball context".

And you and I apparently have different definitions of "balanced". The upswing italic and extra loop on the left disqualifies it in my book.

Walgreen's doesn't have a monopoly of the curly W. A curly W can be used for more than one thing in the world, and just because it is used for a store doesn't mean it can't look good on a baseball team. If people have trouble with that, I would say that's more their problem, not the baseball team's. If they can't use context clues of a situation to figure out whether a curly W they are looking at is on a drug store sign or on a baseball jersey, then they deserve to be unhappy about its use as a baseball logo.

Also, I didn't mean physically balanced, as in "literally symmetrical." I meant balanced as in, "not boring or generic, but also not over the top or gaudy."

[WSU151]

All anecdotal evidence indicates that the retro Brewers stuff outsells the modern. But apparently the modern sells just well enough to keep around so the team can double-dip.

And that's exactly why we will never see the BiG back full time...it would cut into the huge money they make in retro gear sales. Then again, going modern retro seems to have worked in Houston and Toronto. What I wish the Brewers would do, in order to have more cohesive branding, would be to rebrand with a new modern look, changing the colors back to royal/varsity gold. That way, they can still have retro nights with the BiG/pinstripe gear, but at least the color scheme would remain basically the same throughout. From day 1, I've never liked the current navy/old gold scheme anyway. The sooner they make that go away, the better.

Going retro full time would cut into their retro gear sales?

Right. Now you have current + retro. If they switch to retro full time, retro becomes current, and there's no retro. So the proposed solution of adopting the retro colors, or a fauxback is probably the best (from a merch standpoint at least) because you still get the current + retro sales.

So if you currently have sales of 70% current + 30% retro, then retro becomes current, then hypothetically sales would be 95% new retro and 5% real retro. The loss in retro sales would go over to current sales because fans will likely want the new retro (if it's done right, like Toronto), so there's no real loss. You're just changing the percentages of the pie, and likely the percentage changes would take place inside of a larger pie.

There's no reason to worry about a loss of retro sales if that same money (or more) is going to buy the new retro look.

[ConcreteCharlie]

Theres no real reason to worry about sales at all. Such BS

[The_Admiral]

What's the protocol for revenue sharing with MLB merchandise? NHL merchandise is split 30 ways unless it's sold on team-owned premises (arenas, retail locations), in which case it goes straight to the team. I wouldn't say it's not a concern, because you want people to buy your stuff and have your logo out there, but it's not going to be the difference between life and death.