As baseball season gets into full swing, the MLB is receiving some flack for the uniforms that players are sporting this season.
In the preseason in February, fans noticed that this year’s uniforms were looking a little off. The fabric seemed to be thin and cheaply made, making it so that you could see through the pants. In some photos, the white uniforms appeared to give players no coverage at all.
Other issues include mismatched colors, lack of sweat resistance, and low-quality lettering.
According to NBC, most of the blame for the see-through uniforms has been credited to Nike, not to the uniforms’ manufacturer, Fanatics. According to the MLB Players Association, Nike was pushing their new vapor Premium Jerseys, which Fanatics manufactured, and the upgrades seem to have backfired.
In a memo and an interview with The Athletic, the MLBPA is careful not to place the quality issues on Fanatics, saying that the manufacturer was simply carrying out their instructions and the quality issues were due to standards presented by Nike.
According to Yahoo! Sports, the design changes on this season’s uniforms were designed to enhance performance and had been previewed in previous years including for last year’s All-Star game. Unfortunately, rather than enhancing performance, they’re just invited ridicule from fans and even players.
Los Angeles outfielder Taylor Ward called the material “papery” and players from the Philidelphia Phillies and the Baltimore Orioles told The Athletic that the new uniforms are hated by most of the players in the MLB, one even saying that they look like knock-offs instead of the real thing.
The issue goes further than low quality material and see through uniforms, some teams haven’t even received complete uniforms at all. The Athletic reported that there was a pants shortage in particular, some teams even had to push back pre-season games becasue they had nothing to wear. Newsday reports that the New York Mets haven’t worn their black or blue uniforms this season because they stull haven’t received the correct pants that match the jerseys.
According to Yahoo! Sports, the MLB is hoping to fix all quality and supply issues but the start of the 2025 season. It’s unclear if there’s a chance MLB players could have new uniforms during the 2024 baseball season adn when exactly those fixes will be initiated.
Unitil then, it might just be see through pants and mismatched uniforms all the way through to the World Series, much to the chagrin of fans and players alike.