MLB Concepts 2023 (Epilogue: Tampa Bay Rays v3)

[mahnkej]

I'm a bit footballed-out at the moment, so I thought I'd try my hand at my real sports passion of Major League Baseball. Plan is to try for 1-2 sets per week, with the goal of finishing by the end of the year. Teams will be organized by how MLB is currently structured (though I'll probably make an exception for Oakland, who are all but guaranteed to move to Las Vegas).

 

Each team will have at a minimum a Home, Road, Alternate, and Throwback Uniform. Most teams will probably have at least four sets. There will be no arbitrary limiting factors (*cough cough* NIKE  ) although I'll probably cap the number of different designs for each team at six. Anything more than that is a thread in itself. I also won't make changes just for the sake of making changes; if a team already has a great look, I'll probably just make small tweaks or create some new alternate jerseys instead.

 

 Big thanks to @MJD7 for letting me use his template. I just modified it slightly for my preferences for this thread.

 

Comments/feedback always welcome!

 

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AMERICAN LEAGUE EAST

Baltimore Orioles  v2 | Boston Red Sox  v2 | New York Yankees | Tampa Bay Rays  v2  v3 | Toronto Blue Jays

 

AMERICAN LEAGUE CENTRAL

Chicago White Sox  v2 | Cleveland Guardians | Detroit Tigers | Kansas City Royals | Minnesota Twins

 

AMERICAN LEAGUE WEST

Houston Astros  v2 | Los Angeles Angels | Oakland/Las Vegas Athletics  v2 | Seattle Mariners | Texas Rangers  v2

 

 

NATIONAL LEAGUE EAST

Atlanta Braves  v2 | Miami Marlins  v2 | New York Mets | Philadelphia Phillies  v2 | Washington Nationals   *Montreal Expos*

 

NATIONAL LEAGUE CENTRAL

Chicago Cubs | Cincinnati Reds | Milwaukee Brewers | Pittsburgh Pirates | St. Louis Cardinals

 

NATIONAL LEAGUE WEST

Arizona Diamondbacks  v2  v3  v4 | Colorado Rockies  v2 | Los Angeles Dodgers | San Diego Padres  v1.5 | San Francisco Giants

[mahnkej]

Arizona Diamondbacks

 

First team up for this series is the first team up alphabetically, the Arizona Diamondbacks. This one was really interesting to me, as I sort of see Arizona as the Jacksonville Jaguars of MLB. Great primary logo and colors, but somehow their uniforms consistently fall short. Thankfully they've streamlined their look and dumped some of the more "out there" aspects recently, but these still come across as a bit flat to me.

 

The easy fix here would be to just re-introduce the 90's-style uniforms and colors, but I actually went a different route and stuck with their current color scheme.  I think red, black, and sand are fitting for a team that plays in the desert. Changes are as follows:

 

• Home Uniforms - These switch to the same style as their black alternate jerseys, as I much prefer this design over the tacky "DBacks" front script. Rear numbers are changed from black/red outline to red/black outline
• Road Uniforms - Primary color is changed from gray to a desert sand color. Red is also used more prominently than their current set, which is very black -heavy.
• Alternate Uniforms - Red jerseys use the "Arizona" script instead of "D-Bags" "D-Backs". I also brought back the secondary red "D-Snake" logo hats. Black jerseys stay as is. Alternate white jersey stays mostly as is, with the player names going back to black/teal outline to help legibility. This is actually one where the DBACKS script could work, though I still prefer a full "DIAMONDBACKS" script.
• Throwback Uniforms - Bring back those beautiful purple pinstripe jerseys. Easy peasy.

 

[coco1997]

Good start to the series! While I’ve never been a huge fan of this color scheme for Arizona, I think you made it work as best as possible. Personally, I’d flip the home and road alts; lighter colored alts tend to be worn at home, with darker ones worn on the road. 
 

For the white alternate, any thought to stacking the “Diamondbacks” wordmark similar to the 2007-11 primary logo?

[mahnkej]

On 4/25/2023 at 7:01 AM, coco1997 said:

Good start to the series! While I’ve never been a huge fan of this color scheme for Arizona, I think you made it work as best as possible. Personally, I’d flip the home and road alts; lighter colored alts tend to be worn at home, with darker ones worn on the road. 
 

For the white alternate, any thought to stacking the “Diamondbacks” wordmark similar to the 2007-11 primary logo?

Thanks, I appreciate it! Actually I did think doing of a stacked script, but with the style from their original home uniforms. Wasn't crazy with how it turned out, maybe I just need to play around with the design a little more. This is what I came up with:

[mahnkej]

Atlanta Braves

 

I've always thought the Braves low-key have some of the best uniforms in the game. Timeless look that hasn't really changed since the 80's, when they went back to the style of the original Milwaukee Braves. As such, I didn't make many changes to these, other than to add a their secondary logo as a sleeve patch. I think having that extra touch of gold really takes these over the top. I also brought back their old secondary hats, which can be mixed and matched with any set.

Additionally, there are two throwback uniforms. First one is a slight alteration of their old cream colored alternates, which might actually be my favorite one of the set. Second one is a 70's style uniform, which basically takes the place of their City Connect jerseys.

 

[VampyrRabbit]

The original home uniforms of the Diamondbacks used a cream base, as it stands you've got 3 white based uniforms for them, which feels a little redundant.

Purple, teal and copper is the best colour combination Peyote can buy, but I like the rest of the rest of the set with the far more muted colours and using the old stacked Diamondbacks logo was the right call.

[MJD7]

Nice start so far! I like the Diamondbacks quite a lot, the full-name alternate is especially interesting, how did you manage to make that? Since the “D-Backs” alternate is so similar, I think you could probably just drop it.

 

For the Braves, the “triple piping” on the alternates makes them look a bit busy to me, maybe you could try dropping the white from the stripes & see how that looks?

 

Looking forward to seeing more!

[coco1997]

For the Braves, I would simplify things by making the primary home uniform off-white (I tend to prefer off-white for the Braves to clean white, but that's just me). That way you don't need two throwbacks. 

[mahnkej]

On 4/25/2023 at 4:31 PM, VampyrRabbit said:

The original home uniforms of the Diamondbacks used a cream base, as it stands you've got 3 white based uniforms for them, which feels a little redundant.

Purple, teal and copper is the best colour combination Peyote can buy, but I like the rest of the rest of the set with the far more muted colours and using the old stacked Diamondbacks logo was the right call.

Oh wow, I totally forgot that the DBacks original uniforms were cream based. Whoops. Good looking out, I updated it on the original post. 

And yeah, I totally understand where you're coming from about the colors. They're iconic in a way; partly why I was so disappointed to see them drop their throwback uniforms. I'll probably sketch up a set using the original colors at some point.

[mahnkej]

On 4/25/2023 at 8:12 PM, coco1997 said:

For the Braves, I would simplify things by making the primary home uniform off-white (I tend to prefer off-white for the Braves to clean white, but that's just me). That way you don't need two throwbacks. 

I hear you, the white and cream uniforms are close enough that it is a bit redundant. Guess I just like the current home uniforms too much to drop them completely.  Cream does look amazing with their design IMO.

Just curious, which of these hypothetical variations do you think looks better? 

 

[coco1997]

3 minutes ago, mahnkej said:

I hear you, the white and cream uniforms are close enough that it is a bit redundant. Guess I just like the current home uniforms too much to drop them completely (although they definitely could). Cream does look amazing with their design IMO.

Just curious, which of these hypothetical variations do you think looks better? 

 

I'd go with the second option. I've always loved the contrasting tomahawk and those striped socks! 

[mahnkej]

On 4/25/2023 at 6:17 PM, MJD7 said:

Nice start so far! I like the Diamondbacks quite a lot, the full-name alternate is especially interesting, how did you manage to make that? Since the “D-Backs” alternate is so similar, I think you could probably just drop it.

 

For the Braves, the “triple piping” on the alternates makes them look a bit busy to me, maybe you could try dropping the white from the stripes & see how that looks?

 

Looking forward to seeing more!

Thank you, I actually just modified this wordmark I found on Wikipedia. As far as I know they don't use this officially, but it seemed to work well for what I was going for:

 

I never really intended on keeping the "D-Backs" alternate, I just kept it in for comparison sake. I removed it for now, might as well keep the original thread tidy.

 

As for the Braves, here's what they would look like with just single stripes. This is pretty much what they wear currently, I mainly wanted to keep the double stripes to match the pants but it definitely works this way: 

 

[mahnkej]

Atlanta Braves v2

 

For the sake of brevity, I'm starting a new post for the Braves. Here's what they would look like with cream becoming the full-time home color, and contrasting navy-blue Tomahawks. 70's throwbacks are grouped in here to have some variation.

 

[mahnkej]

On 4/25/2023 at 9:10 PM, coco1997 said:

I'd go with the second option. I've always loved the contrasting tomahawk and those striped socks! 

Right on, I've always been partial to the Milwaukee Braves -style jerseys myself. I remember a while back I did a Braves franchise on MLB The Show, and inevitably I would end up equipping the throwback jerseys every game

[coco1997]

8 hours ago, mahnkej said:

Atlanta Braves v1.5

 

For the sake of brevity, I'm starting a new post for the Braves. Here's what they would look like with cream becoming the full-time home color, and contrasting navy-blue Tomahawks. 70's throwbacks are grouped in here to have some variation.

 

Much better!

[mahnkej]

Baltimore Orioles

 

Overall, I'd say the Orioles are at their peak aesthetic with the current uniforms. Perfect example of a "faux back" done right. As such, my changes were mostly subtle. Stripe pattern on the sleeves + pants is tweaked, and black alternate jersey uses a cursive "Baltimore" wordmark instead of "Orioles". 

 

There are two throwback looks, first one is my personal favorite Orioles look, the 90's / early 2000's era home uniforms. Second one is a true 80's style uniform, with an orange pullover jersey and old school Orioles wordmark. The current primary hat is used along with this set, as their throwback logo is so similar it would just be redundant to create another.

 

[mahnkej]

Boston Red Sox

 

Next to the Yankees and Dodgers, these might be the most iconic uniforms in baseball. Once you turn on the TV, you just instantly know who's playing. The font, the colors, the stylized red B on the dark blue hat - these just work.   

 

With that said, the main change I made was to keep the design consistent across all sets. Single headspoon stripe is now standard across all 4 main sets. I also stuck with the tradition of not using player names on the Home jerseys (white and red), while the Road jerseys (gray and blue) keep the player names. 

 

There are two new uniforms for this set. First one is a red jersey that pays tribute to Boston's large Irish population. Hats + batting helmet are green, jersey text is green w/ white outline, and MLB logo on the back is colored green, white, and orange like the Irish flag. I also added a shamrock logo on the left sleeve, which was inspired by their old St. Patrick's Day jerseys. Throwback look is a toned down version of their 80's road uniforms, only with the proprietary Red Sox font used instead of plain block numbers.

 

[johne9109]

as iconic as the Red Sox uniforms are I would be perfectly happy if they dropped blue in favor of green. I get it; it's historic, but blue is overdone and green just makes sense for them. Fantastic set though

[coco1997]

I agree with @johne9109; I think it would be bold of you to go all-in on the green and go red and green across the board. 

 

Also, how about using these classic stirrups?

[mahnkej]

18 hours ago, coco1997 said:

I agree with @johne9109; I think it would be bold of you to go all-in on the green and go red and green across the board. 

 

Also, how about using these classic stirrups?

Good call on the stirrups, I totally forgot about those. Those work good with the throwback jerseys, I updated them on the original post.

 

Not crazy about the idea of the BoSox going green full time, but what the hell, I'll give it a shot.