The MLB’s uniform situation has the Minnesota Twins asking the same question that many of their fans ask themselves in the morning.
“Where are my pants?”
While our readers can likely find their pants at some point, the Twins aren’t as fortunate. The Athletic’s Dan Hayes reports that the team hasn’t received pants for the cream-colored “Twin Cities” jersey, making Minnesota the latest team to be affected by the situation involving Nike, Fanatics and MLB.
MLB has been developing new uniforms in conjunction with Nike since 2018 and the two sides announced a major change heading into this season. According to Front Office Sports, the new uniforms promote “lighter, more flexible” fabric with “greater levels of moisture wicking.”
While the uniforms are designed by Nike, they are produced by sporting memorabilia giant Fanatics, which has had issues getting them delivered to teams.
According to Bleacher Report’s Kyle Corwin, the St. Louis Cardinals “Victory Blue” jerseys won’t be available until June and the Seattle Mariners’ cream jerseys have yet to arrive this season. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale also reports that the Texas Rangers and Milwaukee Brewers haven’t received their City Connect jerseys to open the year.
Fanatics stated that it measures players for uniforms in spring training and asks leagues to prioritize which uniforms they would like delivered first. The uniforms are then delivered in six windows, with the first coming on March 18 and the last on May 27.
Fanatics also stated that the final window is “on track to be delivered early and ahead of schedule” but it hasn’t prevented issues once the jerseys arrive.
Sweat stains have been part of the problem and Twins reliever Brock Stewart was critical of the new uniforms after he had a giant wet spot on his right side during last weekend’s series in Kansas City.
“It’s a downgrade this year, that’s all I’ll say – it’s a downgrade,” Stewart told The Athletic. “…At this point, I don’t know. Do we have the old ones in the back of the closet somewhere we can bring out?”
The numbers and lettering are also significantly smaller on the new uniforms, making them look like something you would see on MVP Baseball 2005. While the Kansas City Royals won an appeal to have the regular-sized lettering, MLB has not publicly revealed the process to win the appeal.
Then there are the pants, which have been a topic of discussion since spring training. While the pants have been promoted to be lighter, they also have a sheer look revealing the bottoms of jerseys and other components.
The gray pants are no different as the Washington Nationals wore two different shades of gray during their season opener in Cincinnati.
These Nationals jerseys and pants are two different colors. pic.twitter.com/aUoMII2gy3
— Joe Tutino (@JTutino) March 31, 2024
All of these things seem like minor details but they are ones that Nike and Fanatics have whiffed on in the early part of the season. With a retail price of $155, the Twins cream jerseys continue to be available in the team shop but it’s unknown when fans will see them on the field this season.
