Players Discontent with New Nike Jerseys

There is something different about putting on a big league jersey. Usually, the player has reached the precipice of a mountain he’s been climbing, and puts on the jersey only a small percentage of men wear.

This year has been different. The uniform no longer feels major league-worthy and has left Major League Baseball with a problem.

“You picked that up and it was like, Son of a b—-, this is something,” Andrew Chafin of the Detroit Tigers told The Athletic.

Then he gestured to his new Nike jersey in the Tigers’ clubhouse at Citi Field. “But now it’s just like, Eh, it’s just another jersey. There’s no special feel to it. You pick it up and you should feel like you’re putting on a freaking crown and a big-a– fluffy cape, you know what I mean?”

Chafin shared one more thought that sums up the opinion shared by players across the league.

“They’re not bad jerseys,” he said. “Just, in my opinion, they’re not big-league jerseys.”

The start of the season has exposed design flaws like mismatched colors, sweat spots and smaller fonts. Chafin isn’t the only player who was vocal about the fabric. Twins pitcher Brock Stewart called the uniforms a downgrade. Nike claimed they were an upgrade.

“It’s a downgrade this year, that’s all I’ll say — it’s a downgrade,” said Stewart. “My dad was watching the game and said, ‘Some guys look like their jerseys are a different shade of gray than their pants.'”

In a statement to The Athletic, Nike acknowledged it has received feedback from teams and is “testing different options to lessen the moisture-related aesthetic color differences.”

Nike also said they “have isolated the issue and are exploring a solution to minimize it.”

The company first caught wind of complaints in February, and released a statement stating, “We will continue to work with MLB, the players and our manufacturing partner to address player uniforms.”

It’s April and the same problems remain. Some teams are still waiting for uniforms to arrive. The Twins are missing the pants for their cream “Twin Cities” uniforms. Seattle’s cream-colored uniforms aren’t in yet and the Cardinals were in road grays Sunday because neither of their Saturday alternates — ivory at home, victory blue on the road — had arrived. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported the club did not expect to have either Saturday uniform “until June, at the latest,” due to production delays.

Fanatics has disputed the production delay claim and said the rest of the uniforms should arrive by the end of April.

It’s unclear whether or not changes will be implemented this season but the uniforms remain a hot topic among clubhouses. The general opinion is that everyone wants to look good.

“At this point, I don’t know,” Stewart said, laughing. “Do we have the old ones in the back of the closet somewhere we can bring back out?”