Word has been coming through the grapevine for a while now that the Diamondbacks had a new uni set in the works for next season, with a renewed emphasis on teal, and this morning they officially unveiled it.
There’s a lot to take in here, so let’s go one element at a time:
The New Template
This is the first regular team uniform we’ve seen in Nike’s new tailoring template. We’ve pretty much known what was coming in that regard, but the differences from the old template — several of which are evident in the photo shown above — are still quite noticeable:
- There’s an extra seam in the collar.
- The width of the headspoon/placket piping is narrower (which, to my eye, looks very rinky-dink).
- There’s a ribbed seam built into the sleeve cuffs that makes them flare ever so slightly.
- Uni numbers on both the front and back of the jersey are now dot-perforated:
- Team logo sleeve patches are not embroidered (it’s not clear whether this also applies to advertising patches, although I assume it does):
- The MLB logo is now positioned below the headspoon instead of within it:
Those are the visible jersey changes that I’m aware of. As for the pants, if you scroll back up to the photo at the top of the page, you can see that the front belt tunnels now have a diagonal cut. I imagine there may be other new features to the pants, but those aren’t yet clear to me.
The Home Uniform
Although it’s hard to see in the photos, the home base fabric is cream, not white. As you can see, there are two cap options.
Overall, I think this is pretty nice, and certainly an improvement over the outgoing home uni.
The Road Uniform
This one is fairly similar to the outgoing road design. Here’s a side-by-side comparison:
Adequate, I suppose. Can’t say I love the way the red/teal lettering plays against the grey background, but I can’t get too worked up about it either.
The Black Alternate
This jersey can be worn both at home and on the road. Here’s how it compares with the outgoing black jersey:
As you can see, they’ve basically swapped the tan/sand elements for teal. Can’t say I’m a fan of that move, which creates a bit of a Lite Brite effect, similar to the Marlins’ black jerseys.
The Red Alternate
This jersey, like the black one, can be worn both at home and on the road, and also has two cap options. To me, it’s the weakest design of the bunch — so-so when paired with the black cap and awful with the red cap. Either way, the full “Diamondbacks” wordmark is too long.
———
Bottom line: The D-backs were one of the weaker-looking MLB teams, and they still are. Here’s some additional info and photos.
Meanwhile, the team’s “Serpientes” alternate will remain in the mix for next year.
“Diamondbacks” may be too long a word for a baseball jersey, but I know I was tiring of “D-backs” in all its varying forms. That just doesn’t work, either.
I completely agree! Having a shortform word on your main jersey is tacky IMO.
As a fan of the Metropolitans, I’m afraid I have to disagree
They’re not the Metropolitans. They’re the Mets.
As a fan of the Mets, you should know their team name isn’t “Metropolitans”.
To settle any bets or arguments, the official corporate name of the Mets is Metropolitan Baseball club. Here is Exhibit A
link
I like the return to the old, more angular D logo. Fits much better with the rest of their logos and wordmarks.
[scrolling down to comment before reading Paul’s take:]
Ooh, I like this; I’d call it a huge improvement, just on the basis of eliminating the stupid “D-Backs” abbreviation. Because of the unwieldy 12-letter nickname this club always been a prime candidate to have the logo instead of the name on the chest (unlike, e.g., the Nationals), and it’s good to see that they went that way on the whites and black alts, as well as made a good effort to squeeze all 12 letters onto the red alts instead of stacking them like they did with the original wordmark. The unified color scheme works too. Thumbs up.
Red and teal don’t mix! And not just that, but the teal is way too bright and radioactive-looking (I realize this is not a new problem). They need to rip the band-aid off and go back to purple and teal (or heck, any color scheme that isn’t red and teal).
I actually prefer every one of these to the previous version. I like the red/teal way more than anticipated and it gives more life to the uniforms than the red/sand combo. The teal also feels more of a part of the whole than before where it felt tacked on just because. I also really like the return of the snake/D logo for the hat as I always thought that was a cool design. IMO, this is probably the best they’ve looked since they switched to red as a predominant color.
Meh.
I agree with what was said about the thin headspoon but this is also probably going to become the standard and will sadly look less out of place in time. I guess all of the uniform details (NOB, number, wordmark) are kiss-cut now too?
Regarding this design, I like the choice to have a consistent color palette – red/turqouise/black throughout. Red and turqouise is unique and does convey “Arizona” fairly well, though you could say the same about copper.
I don’t mind the full spelling of “DIAMONDBACKS” across the chest. Better than nicknames or abbreviations to me.
This set does not solve one of the issues that has plagued the team since its inception: a startling lack of a coherent visual identity. Purple/turqouise/copper… brick red/tan/black… red/aqua… pale yellow. Pinstripes or not. Vests or sleeves. 2 snake head logos – the “db” and the snake with a ball in its mouth. 2 cap logos – the “A” and the “D snake”. Even now, they are going with 4 hats – “A” on red with black brim; “A” on black with black brim; “D snake” on red with red brim; “D snake” on black with a red brim. Pick a monogram and practice self-restraint, 2 hats at the most. Consistently inconsistent seems like a dumb identity strategy.
100% agree. No one ever notices, as they’re complacent with THREE different uniform logos that don’t match. The ‘A’, snake head on the sleeve and the ‘D’ from 1998.
The issue I have with the return of the ‘D’ logo on the hat is that you are forcing teal into a complete stroke around the logo instead of only using the color as a drop shadow like before. Where’s the copper, btw?
While I like what the @Dbacks released today I can’t stress enough that the brand needs to evolve. It’s ok to use more than only two colors. Black doesn’t count because it’s neutral.
Copper had its life cut short. It’s narrow-minded to throw teal at the wall and see what sticks.
The lack of color variety on the uniform is a small gripe compared to the inconsistency of their logos.
This new template looks awful. I noticed that the placket piping appears to be sewn on (as it would normally), while the sleeve piping appears to be part of the new elastic cuffs and not sewn on (with the widths of each being substantially different).
Goodness. The new Nike template is every bit as bad as I feared it would be. To ADD a headspoon where you previously didn’t have one within this template is (to quote the Ramones) D-U-M-B.
The Diamondbacks need to take a page from the Rangers’ Texas Texas period and simply drop the team nickname from all jerseys.
Or a new shorter nickname. I’ve always like Gila Monsters or even Firebirds.
“Gila Monsters” is the same number of letters as “Diamondbacks” with an extra space between the 2 words. So what does this solve?
I recently watched my Phillies play a 7-game NLCS against this particular team and if you had told me that these were the uniforms they wore during that series, I would’ve absolutely believed you.
What I’m saying is that their old set and this new set are a.) uninteresting and b.) barely distinguishable from each other…
This, exactly. Seems like it fails even as a merch dump for that reason. And the use of teal looks more like a laundry accident than a design feature.
I think these, especially the black, pop a lot more. Bringing back the D snake was also a smart play. Overall these are still mid, but the top half of that mid tier. Sounds like you might still be a little salty from the NLCS lol.
This uniform set will do nothing to alleviate the problem that I have affecting my ability to remember that this team exists.
The teal looks like an afterthought on the home and away. I wonder if it would look more integrated into the design if they used black as the outermost outline with teal next to the red instead.
Here are some of the things I like:
1) I like the shape of the collar around the neck.
2) Using more turquoise.
3) The road jersey with Arizona on the front stands out more than the previous jersey.
4) I like the full Diamondbacks name on the alternate jersey. I can’t stand the D’Backs on the previous jerseys. It looked amatuerish to me. Although, Paul does have a point about the Diamondbacks looking too long on the jersey. The home jersey with the “A” logo solves that problem.
Here are some of the things I don’t like:
1) The placket is too narrow on the jersey. It looks odd. However, I don’t mind the extra seam around the top of the collar.
2) Wearing a “D” hat with a jersey that “Arizona” on the front. That just looks odd to me.
Overall, not bad. The colors are better. But, they are moving in the right direction and there is definitely room for improvement.
I see this as a huge upgrade over their previous uniform set. Far from perfect, but great relative to what they were.
I see this as a huge upgrade over their previous uniform set. Far from perfect, but great relative to what they were.
I wonder how the Diamondbacks word mark would look more pennant style like the Nationals. And instead of a banner on the bottom use a snake tail. The flat across the chest doesn’t work, nor does teal on the black. They should have used the same teal elements as they did on the red jersey. That would have been a better look.
The new look is a slight downgrade for me. I don’t mind the unified color scheme, but I think it would have been just fine if they removed sand and added teal to the outgoing uniforms. My other issues:
– I’m not a fan of the cream home uniforms; I thought last year’s white homes popped nicely.
– Do they really need four (very similar) caps?
– I absolutely hate the placket piping on the new Nike template. Rinkey-Dink is right.
I’m concerned that the Mets, Red Sox, Tigers and whoever else uses that style is going to look worse this year than last.
this is pretty much my take
Massive upgrade solely by getting rid of “D-BACKS”
Their biggest problem is their saddled with such a horrible team name. Three syllable team names inevitably need to be shortened, and the best option for shortening Diamondbacks sounds way too much like everyone’s go-to favorite insult of the 2010’s. They really ought to just change their name to the Snakes or Rattlers.
Rattlers is already used by the local arena football team. Gila Monsters would be a terrific name.
…for a minor-league team.
The Cardinals, Nationals, Orioles, Guardians/Indians, Athletics and Mariners have always managed to fit their whole three-syllable names on their jerseys without abbreviating. Three-syllable city names (St. Louis, Washington, Baltimore, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Milwaukee) also seem to fit, as do four-syllable city/state names (Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Minnesota).
Obviously it’s the number of letters, not syllables, that makes the difference. “Diamondbacks” is 12 letters; so is “San Francisco” which adds a space. The rest of these are all ten letters or fewer.
I think it was a mistake not to retain the name of the AAA Phoenix Firebirds, which had a long & distinguished history in the SW. It’s not only a more evocative name, the concept seems to lend itself better to creative logos, wordmarks, and uni designs.
What exactly is a “headspoon?” Google isn’t helping — the top results for the term point back to Uni Watch.
The piping that goes up the placket and around the collar, looking like a spoon.
A term coined by UW legend “Comrade” Robert Marshall!
Not a legend — a real person and a nice guy. And yes, he coined the term.
I’m not sure you were entirely correct to say that the sleeve patch isn’t embroidered. I could be wrong, but it certainly looks to me like the teal in the fangs and tongue are embroidered, and most/all of the black areas are embroidered, as well.
Compare to this: link
You meant the patch material itself. I also thought you meant the sewing technique. It is indeed some sort of printed material that is sewn to the unform: cheaper but probably sold as being “lighter for the benefit of the players…”
If there’s ever an “I’ll need to see it on the field” uni, it’s the black jersey with the teal striping. In this photo, it looks dark and almost fluorescent.
link
But if you look at the “teal” on the cream jersey …
link
that almost looks seafoam or mint green ice cream in color.
I’ll bet when we see those black tops on the field, the “teal” will be much less pronounced.
I was thinking the same exact thing. I think they did the lighting for the photoshoot in such a way to make it really “pop,” for better or worse.
No one asked, but I’ll offer my opinions to the reading public. I think this is a step backwards given how their previous set had evolved since its initial debut.
– Home: The off-white looks like dirty laundry, especially when paired with the black hat. Wouldn’t be awful as an alternate, but as a primary it lacks excitement.
– Road: Worst of the bunch. I was actually starting to like the previous version after seeing it throughout the playoffs. The black D hat with red brim is atrocious, the fronts need numbers, and the headspoon piping is unnecessary. I’d expect to see a minor league team wear this.
– Black: The best of the group. But still too much teal, and in the wrong places. Numbers need the black outline to break the eye-melting red/teal combo.
– Red: Second worst of the group. For one, the D*Backs script was fine, but the bigger problem (again) is the clash of red and teal. Bring back the sand!
Other notes:
– Did they bother to wash these before having the players pose in them? They all look wrinkled and unkempt; I’m sure that’s swaying my opinions a bit.
– I was expecting/hoping to see purple make an appearance again, given that Marte and Gurriel both used off-colored accessories in the playoffs.
– As a universal template, the MLB logo UNDER the headspoon is going to bother me, as will the pants color (especially the gray) and piping (thinner) not matching those from the tops.
Looks more turquoise than teal to me.
Agree, teal is what the Mariners use.
Personally, I think each uni is a massive upgrade and the best the team has looked in a long time.
Add my tally mark in the “improved” column. Especially the elimination of “D-Backs” and the home unis. True, they are a little closer to the Rams’ white, but I thought the Twins’ version of that white looked great on the field.
But subtle as it is, I love the new (old?) D logo.
I quite like this, overall. Scrolling through the comments, evidently I’m in the minority here. It’s not a perfect set to be sure, but I feel it’s a distinct upgrade over what they’d been wearing in a couple of ways.
Improvement 1:
I like when a team’s color scheme has something that makes it “pop”, and the turquoise highlights do that for me. I’ve felt ever since the Diamondbacks donned the dark red and black that their look has just been kind of dull. As soon as they first used some turquoise accenting on an alternate, I immediately wished they would adopt that as a core part of their identity to brighten things up.
Improvement 2:
Dropping “D-Backs” entirely as a wordmark. That has always just looked terribly awkward. The new home uniform with the A-logo patch looks great.
But, dislike:
Far too many hats is the thing I dislike the most. (Old man shakes fist… “Back in my day, one hat was good enough!”) I feel the black A-logo hat is the best of the bunch, and they’d look good wearing it all the time.
I wish they would dump the red. Even if they don’t want to go back to the purple and teal, they could just go with the teal with black. And their teal is now really turquoise or aqua, which I like better than the teal they us
For some reason while I’m typing on my phone the screen jumps and I accidentally push send. This is the only site this is happening.
I wish they would dump the red. Even if they don’t want to go back to the purple and teal, they could just go with the teal with black. And their teal is now really turquoise or aqua, which I like better than the teal they used to have with the purple. That teal was more like a dark green. The red and teal just doesn’t look good together.
Id say this is a huge improvement that has taken 15 or so years of filtering out their dumbest and or most boring of their ideas to land here. This looks like a baseball team, IMO.
No color combo is more drab and boring (and repellent to merch sales) that burnt-red and tan, and its been proven over and over with the Astros, Coyotes, and now the Snakes again. Getting the teal as much accent time as possible makes everything pop much more. Plus the spoon/yoke does quick and easy leg work to make them look like a proper team. Memories of the shoulder gradients and bloody ankles are fading quickly. Nice work, Snakes!
That new Nike template doesn’t exactly exude quality. Visited the MLB store in NYC recently. Up close, the uniform tops look thin and cheap. Like something found in the Fanatics discount section.
I’m a fan.
Aside from the narrower neckspoon, I think these are upgrades over their last two uni-sets.
-The teal on black looks like will really pop!
-The fangs on the A and the K in Diamondbacks is a winner for me
-Red and Teal seem to go together great! I am curious how this set would look with purple instead of red.
-Although tradition for this team has it that there is no number on the chest of the unis with the A lettermark, I am curious to see what adding
(Cont)
I am curious to see what adding the player’s number to the upper chest.
I wish they would go back to turquoise and not teal. Teal is way too light an accent color and it looks like it belongs on a Padres uni. I think addition by subtraction worked here as they got rid of the D-backs wordmark. The teal headspoon on the black uni makes it pop so I’m liking that. I couldn’t find any photos but I suppose the MLB logo is still on the back of the belt tunnel?
Kind of sad to see some teams constantly change their uniform. Their franchise is such a dog they’re doing anything to get attention. Yankees, Cardinals, Dodgers never need to make drastic uniform changes.
“Bottom line: The D-backs were one of the weaker-looking MLB teams, and they still are.”
That sums it up. If I saw that picture at the top of the page without the context of this post I would have thought these were the same uniforms they have worn the past few seasons. This franchise needs to blow up everything, including their terrible nickname, and start from scratch.
Phoenix Gila Monsters or even Firebirds would be great nicknames.
They had a poll before picking a name and Scorpions overwhelmingly won. Having a Scorpion on the hat would have looked great. Jerry Colangelo overrode it and chose Diamondbacks. The only thing I like about it is that “Diamond” also has a meaning in baseball, but it’s a bit weak of a connection. And Firebirds would have been great, but maybe because the triple A team in Phoenix had that name it wasn’t available? I thought the Arizona Phoenix would have been great, with the double meaning of the Phoenix firebird rising and the city of Phoenix.
You’ve said this 3 times in this thread. You were heard.
These are marginally better than last years unis. They are probably still the worst in the league.
But wearing black hats and jerseys in Phoenix, in the summer, is absolutely bonkers.
They play under a dome for almost all of their home schedule. Having a black jersey is no big deal.
I like the basic look of all three but that red and teal don’t go at all. This would have been far better served with purple or sand in lieu of that red.
There’s an extra seam in the collar. From the photos it looks like someone needs to iron the collar or insert a collar stay so they don’t droop. The continued “standardization” of the Nike silhouette is limiting any creativity within the scope of more innovative graphics.
Nike broke sports uniform design for the NFL. NBA and now MLB.
Diamondbacks – “Make us look like a west coast version of the Miami Marlins”
Nike – “I gotchu fam.”
I love the red jersey and its vertically arched Diamondbacks title. The other items are an upgrade, though not a significant one. I’ll be curious to see how the narrow headspoon looks on other teams, especially Houston.
I actually think these aren’t that bad. Ditch the red cap. Add a headspoon to the red jersey to bring consistency. And don’t go with the “off white” crap. Your team was added waaaaaaaay after that color was common. Is that color of teal a little “loud”? Yeah, but I can tolerate it much better than the “blah” sand. Hated it when San Diego tried it was well. All in all, I give the new set a B+.
This is a huge upgrade. They are more of a brick team than a red team now. They should call the teal what color it really is, turquoise, which is a great fit for the southwest region. It is unique to MLB and gives everything better contrast. Getting rid of the D-BACKS script for DIAMONDBACKS is a huge win. I always thought the Diamondbacks uniforms had some glaring problems that needed to be fixed. Now, It took forever, but they finally got it right. Would I make a few very small tweaks? Yes, but you could say that about most teams uniforms. I no longer think the Diamondbacks need to fix their uniforms.
Miami, on the otherhand, needs some major changes. They moved up to #1 on the list of MLB teams that need the most fixes.
Didn’t think about “turquoise”. Now that makes more sense. And, may be the lighting that makes the “turquoise” look kind of bright. Will be anxious to see these on the field to get a true feeling as to what they will really look like. Folks, anything is way better than that snake skin look they tried to do a few years ago LOL
I see no discernible difference between the red first introduced in 2006 to the updated red jersey for 2024. I would overwhelmingly embrace “brick red” link over the one used for the last 17 years.
Totally agree with this. Apart from the narrow placket I see it as a slight upgrade because of D-Backs being ousted.
I’d like to see the red jersey inverted: teal w/ red trim.
I never like to see teams that have never worn them adopt a headspoon. That feature should just be grandfathered to the teams that are already wearing them long-term.
Meh. I don’t think the teal looks particularly good on the red jersey, but it seems okay with the other sets. The black jersey is a big upgrade for me, even if it reminds everyone of Miami. Both red hats are trash. Get rid of those and this is a solid “okay” to me.
Best uniforms the team has worn since 2005, a middling B of a set. So a huge upgrade. I’d like it even more if if had no black caps. Either stick with the red, or go bold with a teal chapeaux atop the unfortunate black alternate. And I agree with others that neither Diamondbacks nor D-Backs works well as a jersey script; just stick with the A or the snake-D.
My other takeaway is that the new Nike jersey template is even uglier than I expected.
Superstition alert, it’s never good to change your uniform after a World Series appearance.
Anyway, The D-Backs have probably worn more colors than any other big four sport franchise. They aren’t really violating tradition because they still have the shortest team tenure in MLB.
Arizona has some unique colors to identify the state, and the Snakes have used many of them. If they called the red color “copper” it is perfect as copper mining has always been a legacy of Arizona. The turquoise color is also a copper containing mineral used in Native American jewelry commonly sold in the state. The black is ok as an offset to the copper and turquoise colors. Sand is (was) a good color for a desert landscape, but it seems to be eliminated in the new set. Not a great loss.
The color scheme seems very logical to me and very unique in all of sports. The way it is arranged on the clothing is ok. If you flip on a DBacks game on TV, you’ll immediately know it’s Arizona–very good. Thumbs up on the new look, overall a solid presentation.
But red is RED and copper is COPPER. They are two entirely different colors. That’s as much of a gimmick as Derrick Hall marketing their original rebrand with terms like “Sedona Red and Sonoran Sand”.
As a fan of a division rival… I still call them the D-Bags.
So they’ve gone from a 3/10 to a 5/10 not bad but could have done a lot better.
Waiting for them to go back to their original purple/teal set.
too mAny Damn logos.
just pick one.
“Rinky dink” is a fabulous way to describe that skinny head spoon. Amateurish design. Too many logos = branding nightmare.
The unis look fine to me but the question remains; does this MLB team really exist?
I would have obviously preferred a return to the late 90s/00s purple and teal set, but these are a massive improvement.
The only thing I did not like about their previous set is the D-BACKS thing. The only thing I do not like about this set is the smaller placket which will affect other teams as well. Plus the patches being of printed material instead of being embroidered (small but important detail as pointed out by Paul).