Welcome to the 2025 MLB Uniform Preview series for the American League Central.
This will be part of a much larger 2025 MLB Uniform Preview which will include not only all the uniform news and updates for all 30 teams, but it will also include the multitude of changes which have taken place to uniforms overall. While Nike has addressed a good number of issues raised after last season’s disastrous debut of their new uniform template and material, a few issues won’t be addressed until after the 2025 season concludes. Other big uniform news — like the return to teams wearing their regular uniforms in the All-Star game — will all be included in the full MLB Preview, which will be released on Thursday, MLB’s true Opening Day.
The American League Central consists of the Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Guardians, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals and Minnesota Twins. Several teams in this division will have uniform changes for the 2025 season.
Chicago White Sox
There have been no announced changes to the Chicago White Sox uniforms this year, but a very popular alternate may be going away. The team will stick with the white pins for home games and gray uniforms for the road. In addition to the two primary uniforms, the White Sox have one alternate, a black jersey that can be worn with both home and road pants.
The White Sox are wearing a 125th Anniversary Logo on their caps. Here’s a look at the logo. And here it is as it appears on a cap:
The White Sox currently do not have a jersey to occupy the open spot in their Core Four.
Here’s where things could get interesting, uniform-wise, for the ChiSox.
It has been announced that the White Sox will be one of eight teams to get a new City Connect in 2025. So we do know the “City Connect” spot in the “4 + 1” uniform protocol will be filled by a new CC uniform later this season.
What hasn’t been officially announced by the team is whether their original City Connect uniform — extremely popular with fans and players — will be permanently mothballed.
In theory, the White Sox could redesignate their “Southside” CC to alternate status, as the Boston Red Sox have done with their blue/yellow Boston Marathon-inspired City Connect. It’s certainly possible, and I would love it if the ChiSox would do that. However, they wore the Southside CC sparingly last season, only 10 times in total, and most of those were Monday home games. I’d have to think it’s unlikely the White Sox will keep their CC (first introduced in 2021) and move it to alternate status.
As far as the forthcoming new City Connect, the team has not announced when it will be unveiled.
Cleveland Guardians
Back in November, the Cleveland Guardians announced some changes — “refinements” is their term — for all four of their uniforms going forward into the 2025 season. None of the changes would qualify as major, but each uniform will have a different look heading into next year. Seen above are the primary white and gray uniforms. The Guards will continue to have both a red and navy alternate jersey to complete their Core Four. The team received their first CC uniform last season, and it will be worn again this year.
You can read much more (and see many more photos) of the Guardians refined uniforms here.
Let’s quickly compare the changes from last season to this.
Per the team, “Cleveland’s white home uniform will continue to carry on its primary historic look with script ‘Guardians’ across the chest. The logo will shift from being on a slant to horizontal. New piping will be on the jersey with a red-blue-red design on the neckline and arms.
“A new home hat will make its debut in 2025, solely with the white uniform set, as the main color of the hat will change to red with a blue bill. All hats will continue to feature the ‘Diamond C’, and the club’s blue cap with red bill will be worn with all other jerseys (home red, road blue, road gray).”
Style Guide:
The new cap is probably the biggest change, but the sleeve and collar trim is also new. Interestingly, the team is retaining their 2024 pants, which have piping that matched the 2024 jersey, but now does not align with the new red/blue/red collar and sleeve striping.
Photo day gave us our best look yet at the tweaked home whites:
Per the Guardians: “Cleveland’s gray road jersey will stay the same, featuring ‘Cleveland’ across the chest in Bridge Print font.
“Piping on the gray jersey will be the same red-blue-red color scheme that can be found on the white home uniform set.”
Style Guide:
Once again, the only change here is to the collar and sleeve piping. And once again, the team is keeping the 2024 pants, with the blue piping, rather than switching to match the new jersey piping. (Something the New York Mets have done, changing the pants striping to match the jersey striping.)
Per Cleveland: “The Guardians red home alternative uniform will feature a new look across the chest, as the script Guardians from 2024 will change to the club’s Bridge Print font with ‘Guardians’ across the chest. Piping on the red jersey will showcase a blue-white-blue look.
“The new look allows the club to continue to incorporate the Guardians brand into the jersey set, featuring the same font that can be seen in the number set on the back of all Cleveland jerseys.”
Style Guide:
This and the Guardians blue road alternate (which we’ll look at in a second) received the most changes for 2025. Gone is the chunky, almost Caveman-esque script “Guardians,” replaced with an all-uppercase “GUARDIANS” designed to match the CLEVELAND font on the road grays. And, common to all new jerseys, the collar and sleeve piping has changed. It is now blue/white/blue. This may explain the team’s decision to stick with the 2024 pants — if the white pants piping were to change to red/blue/red (to match the white top), it would then not match the stripe pattern on the red jerseys (blue/white/blue).
The Guardians say “The biggest change for the 2025 season will be seen in Cleveland’s blue alternative uniform set. The jersey will continue to have a navy base but will move away from ‘Cleveland’ across the chest and instead feature the Guardians ‘Diamond C’ logo. The new look gives a nod to the franchise’s jerseys that also had a ‘C’ on the chest from 1901-1945, including the 1920 World Series team jersey, while elevating the Guardians primary logo.
“The piping on the blue jersey will differ from the other uniforms, as the jersey will have red-white-red piping to go with the navy base.”
Style Guide:
This is the jersey the team has been wearing in spring training, so we’ve gotten a few looks at it in action.
As noted, the Guardians received their first CC uniform last year, and it was fantastic.
The Guardians will wear their CC uniforms on home Fridays.
Detroit Tigers
The Detroit Tigers, an extremely tradition-bound team, will continue to wear their home white and road gray uniforms as their primaries. Like the Yankees, the Tigers have no alternate jerseys, so their Core Four consists of the above (photos from 2024).
The Tigers however, unlike the Yankees, were given a City Connect uniform for the 2024 season, and these were immediately panned, and with good reason…they were well, judge for yourself.
After initially wearing the CC on Fridays and Saturdays, the team eventually pared that back to just home Fridays as the season wore on. The Tigers will need to keep these another two seasons.
Kansas City Royals
The KC Royals Core Four uniforms are comprised of the above home white and road gray uniforms (shown in 2024), and they’ll continue to wear their alternate powder blue jerseys at home, and their royal blue alternates on the road. There have been no announced uniform changes for this season. But that doesn’t mean there are no uniform additions.
Back in February, I had the exclusive that the Royals would be bringing back powder blue pants to be paired with their powder blue jersey for 2025. But that exclusive didn’t have all the Royals planned additions. Along with officially announcing the full powder uniform set, the team revealed they will be wearing a “new” cap and helmet with the powder blues.
The team will wear the new full powder blues for every Saturday home game this season. I believe they will continue to pair the powder blue jersey with white pants for other home games.
As I have previously noted, this will not be the first time the team will wear powder blue tops and bottoms at home (they did so for their home opener and final home series in 2023). But it will still be odd to see this uniform worn at home, since the powder blue served as the team’s road uniform for decades, beginning in 1973. That first generation of powder blue was pullovers and sansabelts, with “KANSAS CITY” in white vertically arched lettering on the jersey.
In 1983, and until 1991, the Royals switched to a button front jersey and belted pants, with “Royals” in white script. That uniform is very similar to the full blue the team is bringing back for 2025.
After 1991, the Royals would wear gray uniforms on the road.
In 2008, after a lengthy absence, powder blue jerseys returned as a home alternate, and were worn with white pants. While the script was pretty much identical to the 1983-1991 jersey, for some reason the team rendered “Royals” in dark blue, with a white outline. Numbers were white with a dark blue outline.
The team would wear that style jersey until 2012, when they reversed the script/number colors and outlines. Those jerseys had “Royals” in white with a dark blue outline, and dark blue numbers with a white outline.
While the second iteration (above) looked better than the 2008 jersey, it would take until 2021 (for the 2022 season) for the Royals to redesign the light blue top, and this time it basically mimicked the classic road blues worn between 1983 and 1991.
As noted, for their home opener as well as their closing homestand in 2023, the Royals went full powder.
The team continued wearing the powder blue jersey in 2024, and like every other jersey, it was negatively affected by Nike’s new uniform template.
Minnesota Twins
The Twins have no announced uniform changes for 2025, and will continue to wear their white home and pinstriped gray road uniforms as their primaries in the Core Four. To round out the Core Four, the Twins will also have a navy blue alternate jersey, which is worn on the road, and a cream colored “Twin Cities” uniform that will be worn at home.
Along with eight other teams, the Twins got a City Connect uniform in 2024, which they debuted on June 14th. These CC’s (which were really more of a “State Connect” — the club literally considers the “Twin Cities” alternate to be their connection to Minnie/St. Paul) were viewed much more positively than several others introduced last season.
The Twins will have this CC for another two years at a minimum. Last season, after initially wearing the CCs on home Fridays and Saturdays, beginning in August the team wore these for all Friday night home games.
Finally, here’s an infographic created by Susan Freeman showing the AL Central uniforms (cap, jersey, pants) by their official colors. The top line shows cap colors, middle is the jersey, and bottom is the pants. If the pants have a stripe, that is included as well. All “4 + 1” (Core Four plus City Connect) are shown.
You can use this explainer to see the specific breakdown of the cap/jersey/pants.
This article will be updated as any additional uniform news for AL Central teams occurs.
The Guardians are tweaking their way toward significant improvements in most respects. The one knock I have against their 2025 changes is the navy road alternate: Cleveland, in their lettering, makes for a stronger look than the C initial.
All in all, a good-looking division, maybe my favorite, uni-wise, this season.
While not a uniform change, this retailer has a 125th Anniversary patch on the side of the White Sox ‘on field’ 2025 hat
link
So,the Cardinals wear their baby blues for Saturday away games…. And the with Royals just introducing their baby blues for Saturday home games….
Guess who is playing in KC on SATURDAY, May 17?!?
Which blue shall prevail??? If there is any justice in the world, God willing, they will both wear them!
So, the Cardinals wear their baby blues for Saturday away games…. And with the Royals introducing their baby blues for Saturday home games….
Guess who is playing in KC in SATURDAY, May 17?
Which blue shall prevail?!?!? If there is any justice in the world, God willing, they will both wear them!
white sox cc release coming sometime in april according to monday’s ticker
Man I forgot how bad those Detroit CC’s are.
The one time I went to a game at Comerica last year, they wore this nonsense. I was so disappointed.
Cleveland really dropped the ball. Should have gone with Spiders. Saw some artists’ logo/uniform concepts that were awesome. Think of the potential merch sales that could have generated. Oh well.
This argument is so overdone. Tons of people are arachnophobic. That’s why they rejected this idea.
Hey, I’m tiger-phobic and rattlesnake-phobic, but that didn’t stop Detroit and Arizona.
the white sox gray pants are single black stripe, and have been since 2011
The eternal question: Are the Guardians a blue team or a red team? Pick a lane,
They’re not bad, but to me, a very casual baseball fan, they still don’t look like the Twins.
Are the White Sox dropping their ’83 throwbacks that they have been wearing on Sunday home games?
They didn’t wear them at all last year, 2023 was the last time they were worn on the field.
Don’t understand why the Guardians don’t have a red helmet. If you’re going to have red hats, wear a red helmet.
It’s a huge pet peeve of mine (one of many) when helmets don’t match hats. And the powder blues should be the Royals full-time road unis.
Is Kansas City wearing the batting practice cap with the blue uniforms or is there a different on-field version? I can’t tell yet from photos and video. It’s not often in MLB history that a team has worn the batting practice cap material in a game.
Massive fail on the Guardians’ pants. I can’t look at that mismatched piping. I will change the channel and never watch again. (I acknowledge my reaction may seem extreme. YMMV.)
Also of note: the Guardians no longer have a navy-billed cap. They’ve been wearing an all-navy cap on the road since I can remember, so this is a notable shift.
In a perfect world, I’d love to see the Sox shift the CCs to Core 4 status, but with the same logo placement as the white and black tops, and maybe even adopt that number font across the whole set.