Impetus: the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres announce and unveil new jerseys debuting in the 2016 season
I get it. Ultimately, running a baseball team is a business, which is oldest excuse in the book when it comes to justifying absolutely anything that a team does, from fluctuating ticket costs, trading away popular marquee players, to unveiling a parade of new and alternate uniforms in order to sell more shit and make more money.
However, as it pertains to uniforms, it gets to a point where the pursuit of making money begins to possibly interfere with another, also important business strategy: strengthening of brand. When the Diamondbacks have five available baseball caps with three different logos, somewhere along the line it becomes murky of what might actually be the team’s logo. When the Padres where white and yellow on Thursday, brown on Friday and then blue Navy camo on Sunday, and then immediately hit the road and get back into road gray for Monday, it’s puzzling to believe that they’re all the same team.
Given the fact that official NewEra caps range anywhere from $25-35 for the things players wear, and jerseys from Majestic are like $99 for replicas, much less $200+ for authentic ones, I have a hard time believing that any kid not the offspring of GEICO or ExxonMobil executives are going to get their hands on more than a single set out of the 75+ possible combination of jersey+ballcaps.
I get it. People do indeed like options, and simply having a large array of options does increase the likelihood that someone will buy something, but the purist snob in me has a hard time believing in the validity of someone’s fandom that bothers to get anything other than the standard home white or road gray, and the cap that was the lone option prior to 2003, when presumably the explosion of options came to fruition.
The harsh reality is that as it pertains to the Diamondbacks and the Padres, neither of these unveilings are really going to help, given the fact that both teams are coming off of abysmal 2015 campaigns, and at least to this point, have shown little reason to believe that 2016 will be any better.* Nothing sells merch better than winning baseball games, and with both teams looking as weak now on paper as they finished the previous season, wins aren’t going to be that frequent, and the availability of merch at the team stores will likely reflect such.
*Not to mention, with 2016 being an even-numbered year, there’s little reason to believe that the fucking San Francisco Giants are going to win it all again, despite my utter revulsion to that thought
Ultimately, both the Diamondbacks and Padres need to stop worrying about superficial crap like moving merchandise and giving people options, and should probably focus on bettering their rosters and trying to win baseball games. Teams like the Royals, Athletics, Dodgers and even the loathsome Orioles are less egregiously excessive with their uniforms and cap options, are more traditional in design with classic script logos, and go with the tried-and-true methodology for team name on home whites, and city name on road grays.
Coincidentally, those four teams I would consider to be some of the best uniforms in MLB. There are a few other teams that warrant some mention for simplicity, like the Angels, Phillies, Cardinals and Rays, but they’re a little too simplistic, utilizing the same logo for both home and away jerseys. Come on, not every noob is going to automatically know where you guys are from!
Ultimately, what this boiling down to is the fact that every team is better than the Diamondbacks and Padres, when it comes to simplifying things and not being too excessive with their identity and obsessing over merch sales.
However, if you want the undisputed strongest brand, possibly in all of sports, it really might just be the New York Yankees, whom have basically never changed anything, almost ever. Home whites, road grays, the same cap for all games. I’m pretty sure they’re the only team in MLB without an alternate uniform, although they have busted out playing in practice duds in sparse occasions. The fact of the matter is that through consistency and simplicity, the Yankees, love them or hate them, have essentially reinforced themselves into one of, if not the, strongest identity in all of professional sport. The may not win the World Series every year, like they basically did at the turn of the 90s-00s, but they’re undoubtedly the best uniforms in baseball.
