Last week, we had another of Mike Chamernik’s “Question of the Week” series, the response was great, and Mike is back again with his next question.
Question of the Week
by Mike Chamernik
We’re four and a half months through the MLB season. It’s safe to assume we’ve gotten a good look at each team’s uniforms so far.
If you had to pick one, what team has the overall best set of uniforms? It’s up to you if you factor in the City Connect uni. What team has the worst? And, if you did rank all 30, what team is exactly in the middle?
Again, my stipulation is that you pick just one team for each question. I’m going to make you choose between all the worthy options. If you need to jog your memory, you can click around Uniform Lineup.
Thanks, Mike. This is definitely another fun QOTW.
Readers? Fire away!
I thought it would easier to pick a worst uniform set, but to me, MLB doesn’t have a particularly egregious set like some of the other leagues do. So I’d say the sacrificial lamb would be the Nationals. Between the knock-off looking new road jersey and the Walgreen’s inspired logo, the whole set seems lackluster.
Oakland A’s for best uniform set. (Lack of CC uni is bonus points)
Milwaukee Brewers for right down the middle.
and a lack of uni advertiser as well.
Oakland immediately comes to mind, but I have to admit I prefer their alternate to be forest green rather than Kelly green (even though I own the Kelly one lol). I’ve also always loved the (modern) Mariners’ colours.
The worst would have to be the current Nationals set (excluding the CC, which I think should be considered a bonus for any team anyway). Miami would be second worst. Given the fact that neither team’s look is all that bad, I think that demonstrates the strength of the league’s aesthetics as whole.
I don’t have the energy to rank them all right now, but I suspect that due to the strength of the league as a whole, the middle team is going to be much better than average regardless of who’s ranking them.
Team with best overall uniforms: Boston. Maybe the only jersey of theirs I dislike is the red home shirt.
Team with the worst overall uniforms: Tampa Bay. Everything in their wardrobe is drab, save for their fauxback Devil Rays suit.
Team on the Mendoza Line: Angels. Great CC uniforms, nothing else in the wardrobe makes an impression. Once again, a red shirt is a fly in the ointment.
Of the teams in my top tier, the Cardinals are the least dragged down by their CC, so I guess they’ll take the top spot. The worst is harder to pick in a way, but I guess Kansas City, as I find them totally generic.
No way! The Royals are an under the radar classic, crisp and clean!
The O’s have the best full set of uniforms; their CC jerseys aren’t great, but neither are anyone else’s, and they’ve kind of saved the overall look of that uniform with the white pants. Just about every single other jersey/hat combo they have is better than whatever their opponent is going to wear against them. They were even better a month ago, pre-ad sleeve.
The Marlins still have the worst uniforms, despite their moderate changes they’ve made this season. The white and grays are super drab/can’t see any of the trim color from almost any distance, the black alts have the same issue so now they just look black and white and have the added anti-bonus of no longer matching the hat, and the hat logo is also invisible at almost any distance. The new blue uniforms are excellent, but aren’t worn nearly often enough to save the overall collection. Their CC uniform is fine.
Right in the middle of the pack are the Reds. All their elements fit within the context of the collection, they stick to keeping home hats at home and road hats on the road, which I really like. But no single element within their uniforms is noteworthy. Their CC is one of the worst.
I had no real complaints with the Florida Marlins original set aside from the wordmark being a bit cumbersome, but come on, it’s Miami, man. If any team should be flirting with color, it’s Miami. Granted they are likely to come across as ripping off the Heat, but they should not have greys or blacks, they should have a home white for tradition’s sake and full color roadies and alternates. Of course, in their efforts to SLIGHTLY differentiate from the Heat, they currently use pretty weak shades of blue and red (magenta?), so that needs tweaking.
Best Overall: Philadelphia
Worst: Miami
Middle: Houston
The ridiculously stupid CC uniforms not factored into rankings
I usually lean Dodgers for best overall. While their CC isn’t great, it isn’t the worst and the team gets a boost for having no other alternates.
Worst has to be the D-Backs. Make up your mind on what your colors are!
Down the middle: Giants
This questions is in regards to all teams across the MLB, not just the NL West, in case that changes any of your answers ;)
I’d suggest the Yankees (iconic look and also holding true to the simple old convention of white at home, gray on the road, and that’s it) as the best. But removing the bias against excessive alts, (and discounting CC nonsense as part of teams’ uniforms) I’d say probably the Phillies. I give them a pass for not having city name on the road jersey given the length of Philadelphia and that their nickname is self-explanatory for their city. Their alternates are both great, the only downside would be they wear the baby blue at home instead of being road alternates.
Other contender for the best is St Louis. Great home and road set, great alternate cream and baby blues, and the design/identity is consistent across all uniforms. Only gripe would be the home cream alternate should say Cardinals, while the road gray should say St Louis (and the baby blue should be designated road alt).
I would say at the moment no uniforms are completely awful, so it is hard to say who is the worst, I think most are at least decent, and would just need minor changes to be good. Likewise, it is hard to call a middle of the pack, as I think it most uniforms fall into either great/close to being great or pretty good / just need a few tweaks.
Without taking CC into consideration, I think the Pirates and Cardinals are solid.
Best has a lot of tough competition, I’d probably say the Mariners, their whole set is very good, and are one of the least dragged down by their CC (at least it looks like an M’s uniform). The only real knock against them is the lack of a gray away uni.
The worst…. I think it’s the Rays. Their jersey logo is bland, the light blue alts look incomplete with the little sunburst logo, and the well-intentioned CC is completely illegible.
In the middle, I’m gonna say the Phillies actually. I LIKE the their home pins and the cream alt, I just think they’re not in that upper echelon of home unis (a tough category to be fair, MLB is LOADED with great home unis). They have an INCREDIBLE powder blue alt, but their gray roadies are meh at best. Not bad, just meh. and the CC’s? Awful. All in all, I think their 5 unis end up balancing out to perfectly medium.
How do people feel about the Tigers? I can’t really think of any knocks against their Home and Aways, but they don’t feel quite as prestigious as the other historic teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, or Cardinals. And then the City Connects are…….oh brother.
The Tigers’ uniforms are classic. I just think that Detroit tends to be forgotten due to them being largely irrelevant the last decade. Those other teams are usually toward the top of the standings and get way more exposure nationally.
I would hold them in higher regard if they still had the non-cap “D” on the home jerseys.
This. Times 1000.
I agree with D conversation. I also think there away hat is nice, but Trammel pullover and Kaline away sets are better then current.
For me, the Tigers are too good to be considered among the contenders for average, but not nearly good enough to be in the conversation for best. Way better uniforms than the Yankees, a bit better than the Red Sox, but outside the top five for me.
Tigers rank among my top choices if you discount their CC, which is dreadful. I love blue and orange together and Detroit has such a classic look.
Best: Cardinals (Nothing better than the home white/red cap on a bright sunny afternoon)
Mid: Royals (not bad, not good. They just kind of exist)
Worst: Rays (especially since players wear random cleat and accessory colors)
Agree with this. Cards are the best. Royals, Angels, Rangers strike me as right down the middle. I miss the Rays old light blue alternate — the current one looks so batting practice-y to me.
When forced to take all things into consideration, I have to say the mariners. I’m tempted to say Cincinnati just because they keep things simple and nice looking plus they have a great CC. But the M’s live in a weird place where the faux backs are great, the core sets are nice enough, the CC is close to great, the negro league set is super clean, and yet overall i think id welcome a complete redesign of the uni aesthetic more than many other teams.
Not factoring City Connect, but counting all worn-on-field alternates …
Worst: Nationals, Marlins, or D-Backs. I pick the Nats. Fourteen seasons of tweaks since rolling out the new unis in 2011, and every single change has made the uniform set worse. And the team is still not using the version of the curly W logo they redesigned in 2011 on their caps. It’s just mystifyingly, seemingly deliberately, bad.
Median: Brewers, Guardians, Royals. I pick the Guardians. The acme of replacement-level unremarkability. Perfectly fine. Good, even! But good in the sense of sufficient, not in the sense of exceptional.
Best: Dodgers, Cardinals, Twins. For me, the Dodgers remain the global gold standard for uniform quality. The Twins may have the best redesign so far this century, barely edging out the Astros in my book, but that’s not quite enough to displace LA from the top spot. The Twins and Cardinals may earn an A-plus, but the Dodgers are the scale on which grades are earned. Trying to make a uniform set more beautiful than the Dodgers is the design equivalent of dividing by zero inside the event horizon of a black hole.
Good answers, everyone!
A little surprised to see people don’t like the Nats, but I agree. The road gray is so generic. I’m not surprised to see Miami as a bad uni — but I like them!
The middle-of-the-pack answers are interesting. Guardians, Royals, Brewers, Angels, Astros…
I LOVE the Nats. I love the softball alt with the W superimposed over the Capitol dome. I love their City Connect unis. I even love the Curly W.
Best: Dodgers – Their color of blue, with that splash of red with the front number, is perfection.
Worst: Padres – I’m glad they went back to brown for tradition and making sense since a padre robe is brown, but I hate that color for a uniform. And their roadies in sand/light brown is ugly. Also don’t like pinstripes for them.
Middle: Angels. It’s fine, but I don’t understand what red has to do with an Angel? Wouldn’t that make more sense for a Devil? Also, they should have somewhere on their uniform either “LA” or “Los Angeles”., particularly their road uniform.
Ignoring CC altogether:
Best – Dodgers (honorable mention to the Cardinals, Giants and Braves)
Middle – Rockies
Worst – Diamondbacks (barely being edged out here are the Nationals, Marlins and Rays. And I do mean barely)
Best: Padres, all different franchise era’s and even cc are just beautiful to me.
honorable mention: Pirates, personifies the feeling of the city.
Worst: Dbacks, they should rebrand.
honorable mention: Angles, the shade of red is too sharp. 90s and 60s were beautiful.
The best…Cardinals
The worst…Rays
The middle…Reds
The Best….. The A’s
Middle…… The Cubs
Worst….. The Guardians…. They need a complete rebrand.
Best: Blue Jays
Middle: Padres
Worst: Rays
Best: Yankees
Middle: Nationals
Worst: Rangers
With CC:
Best: Yankees (not having a CC is great) or Cardinals love their complete set. The Lou on CC not as bad as the CC cap
Middle: Brewers love the road, home so-so, CC not good or bad
Worst: Seattle Actually liked the gray road that’s no longer worn, dislike the Sunday throwback unis, CCs are horrendous look like something a high school would wear
Without CC:
Best: Cardinals Perfect, Red Sox (only need piping on red top), Dodgers, Braves
Middle: Pirates (not great, not bad)
Worst: Washington: (blue sleeved top is awful)
For a lousy team, the White sox have great unis. Their CC is probably top 3. Yankees and A’s would also be a great choice for top spot.
Middle of the road is Houston. It doesn’t scream classic to me but it’s also not hideous. Their CC is just OK.
Worst of the bunch is Tampa Bay or Arizona. The Rays blue tops look too blobby and depressing whereas the D-backs just have too many options. It really waters down their brand.
“the D-backs just have too many options.”
Well, actually the D-bax have no more options than every other team — each club is now under MLB’s “4 + 1” rule (Four jerseys plus One CC). But they do have a history of having a ton of jersey options, so your point is well taken. But there are now a few teams who are at their 4+1 max. I haven’t done the math, but I’d wager at least half the teams have now met their jersey max.
I wish the White Sox would undo the minor changes done about 10-15 yrs ago where they removed the alternate white sock on diamond logo and replaced it with the Primary SOX logo on the aways, I much preferred the simplicity of the alternate logo.
Also changing their pants and sleeve trim on the road greys to just a thin black line (used to be thick black and white trim) also felt like a minor aesthetic downgrade (the all black uniform tops kept the sleeve trim in the form of white and silver ) that has a bigger effect than you’d expect.
If you factor CC unis into the rankings, I was surprised to see that my top overall spot went to the Angels. Their look is clean and consistent.
Mid-range (with CCs) is the Astros. I HATE them, but I love blue and orange together – the Mets and Tigers also get high marks for this combo – and the Astros do it well. My knock against them is they don’t need the blue alts since the orange alts are so good.
Bottom of the pack are the Padres. I appreciate the concept behind their CC, but I find it ugly. Couple that with the camouflage alts and the fact that they wear pinstripe brown jerseys with matching pants, and their overall look is terrible.
Taking CC out of the mix, I like the the Royals. Their powder blue will forever remind me of Bo Jackson. Middle of the pack is the Red Sox, who would be stellar if they could decide if they’re a blue team or a red team. Worst of the lot once again is San Diego if for no other reason than the camo alts.
Three teams that would be at the top of the pack if only they’d lose their BFBS alts: Orioles, Giants, and Mets.
Honorable mention to the Athletics.
The Orioles and Giants have always had black as a team color (along with orange). Now the Mets clearly for BFBS. We could also get on the White Sox who never had black as a team color until the early 90s; however the black replaced navy and red-a clearly overused color combo.
I know I’m in the minority, but, CC included, the Reds’ uniforms are my favorite.
I like the Reds CC unis
(I guess, as far as CC unis are concerned. Not a fan of the CC program as a whole)
To be honest, I didn’t realize that who I thought the majority was Phil and Paul (and a few others), so maybe that was a bit exaggerated.
I think the Diamondbacks are being very unfairly maligned! By a quick count, thus far we have 4 votes for the Nats as the worst, 4 for the Diamondbacks, and five for the Rays. And lots of answers also included one of these three as second-worst or among the worst.
I’m an outlier, because the Rays and Nats are among my favorites. I’ll agree that the Diamondbacks are at the bottom, though.