Minnesota Twins Unveil New Uniform Set for 2023

Some thoughts:

– The subtle changes to the TC logo are fine with me. Although instead of tweaking the T, I would have tweaked the C so it didn’t look EXACTLY like the Cincinnati Reds cap logo.
– I agree that the numbering on the home is annoying that the front is red and back is navy.
– I appreciate that they kept the underline of “WIN” on the home. I always liked those little uni-quirks.
– The alternate M hat reminded me instantly of the awful (and thankfully short-lived) Miami Marlins Art Deco hat. It feels too plain. Why not just use the same cap for home and away? It doesn’t add anything to the look so why bother?

I think Miranda (64) is wearing a red compression sleeve. From what i can tell it looks like his right arm is bare.

It’s like whoever was designing the uniform numerals said “the logo has this nice little serif style, we should make the numbers match” while in the other room whoever was designing the logo said “we need to get rid of this serif”. And in true “Gift of the Magi” fashion, those two people never talked to each other leaving everyone worse off.

Thanks for the swift and thoughtful coverage, Paul! Big day for a Twins fan like me who’s absolutely hated almost everything the team has done, uniform-wise, for about a generation now.

The custom font’s serifs seem derived from the 2010 home jersey script’s lettering, which itself was in part inspired by the old T serifs. Makes me long for the 2010 script, which remains my all-time favorite Twins jersey mark. The new script is really quite good, much better than I’d feared, but it’s no 2010. I like this custom font, as custom uniform fonts go, but it seems out of place alongside the new cap logos and scripts. Simple Dodgers/Royals style block would be much more suitable to my eye.

I’m pleased with the simplicity of the on-jersey lettering. Twins script/number/NOB outlines have always created a purplish halo for me, so it’s terrific that the team was bold enough to eschew that unnecessary clutter. Everything on the shirts except the alt NOB works just fine and has excellent legibility without an outline. If you can not have outlines, then don’t have outlines.

As to number color not matching front to back, if that’s actually a problem, then we’d have to regard Dodgers home jerseys as deeply flawed failures of design. In the front, team name should be the most prominent feature; on the back, the number plays that role. So it’s entirely appropriate to have the number on front contrast with the team name, and thereby not match the color of the number on back. That said, the home uniforms in particular do seem to be veering toward Rangers territory. Which is fine in theory for the Rangers, who have deliberately embraced a blue-and-red-balanced aesthetic. Given the state flag, that can work for them. It doesn’t work for the Twins. At their best, historically the Twins have been a navy team with bold red highlights. The home uniform in particular needs more anchoring in navy. As Paul suggests, blue belts would go a long way, as would strictly only-blue undershirts. In the past, navy pinstripes have served this purpose, which is why I’d much much rather the Twins return to pinstripes. And while I don’t mind the “asymmetry” of the sleeve/pants striping, I do mind the equal billing given to the red in this element. As such, I’m not a fan of the new striping, which also seems to me to cut against the cleanliness of the no-outline script/numbers/NOB look.

(Asymmetry in pull quotes because the pants striping is only asymmetrical if one views each pants leg in isolation from the other. When considered from the point of view of the whole garment, they’re quite symmetrical. Symmetry, as with most things, is relative to the observer’s frame of reference, and although I have a huge mental tic bordering on a disabling phobia of asymmetry, these stripes don’t bother me on that score.)

As to the North Star M, it seems a stretch to argue that hypocycloid is “played out” in local sports. One team used it before today out of five top-league teams. Now two teams use it. It’s a meh logo, but for me that has more to do with traditional local symbolism that often places a “north star” star off-center to the upper left in a composition. I don’t see the hypocycloid as a north star, I see it as a four-pointed glint hovering somewhat randomly over an M, almost like a halo. The M cap is a place where, shudder, asymmetry is perhaps called for. As it is, the centering makes the M too low and squat on the cap, and the star is too low-contrast, like the C in the old TC logo. I don’t hate the new road caps, I just don’t love them. That’s a C, C-minus element among uniforms that mostly range around B-plus, A-minus for me.

Bottom line, I’d previously regarded the Twins as among the worst-dressed teams in MLB, alongside the Marlins in D-minus territory. Many of the leaks over the last few weeks left me fearing the new uniforms would not amount to much of an improvement. I thought the best case outcome would be that the Twins would jump from ugliest team in the AL Central to a tie for fourth place alongside Cleveland. The end result beats my middling expectations, and I’d rank these uniforms slightly ahead of the Guardians for sole possession of fourth place in a pretty well-dressed division. A few outstanding elements, just a couple of clunkers, this is a B-plus uniform set for me. I had feared low C or C-minus was the more likely outcome, so this has been a good day for this Twins fan.

Probably in the minority here, but I really like how the red pops on the home whites.

Lifelong Twins fan weighing in….

I also think of the twins as a red scripted team (they were from 1972-2015) so it always made sense to me to return to it unless using the 1960’s pinstripe throwbacks.

I’m not too concerned by the lack of a blue outline or the front numbers and back numbers being different on the home (works for the Dodgers?) I think both the home and home alternate are upgrades

Also not bothered by the asymmetrical piping as there is precedent for that as well and i liked the 1970’s home jerseys

Big fan of going back to grey pinstripes on the road, but the new M logo is an absolute dumpster fire

I didnt necessarily think they needed to go back to the metrodome M, but the one they rolled out is so ugly! and looks like the failed marlins logos, Yuck, why?

Would have liked the powder blues (with 1970’s script) to stick around. (as a road not home alternate) Also really like it when they have a red alternate cap but didnt need to see a red jersey

Terrified for the city connect look :-( hopeful we can get a throwback in the mix at some point, also hopeful the players realize they may need to scrap the red accessories (i dont think they make any of the uniforms look better)

I like the Home Alternate, except for the “TC” on the hat only in white. I’d pair this with their new “TC” hat that has red and white. Sure there’s really no other red, but this little splash of red lets people know this isn’t a navy and white team.

So I’ve had a few hours to digest these now and formulate a more nuanced reaction to the set. I think the overall design is well executed, and very clean with good balance across the text and number fonts to offer a rather modern take on both the classic 80s-90s home whites and the road greys of the same era. I’d prefer if they’d kept the pinstripes on the whites, they look great on the greys and that would be more consistent. Although “opposite of the Yankees” in terms of home/road pins isn’t a bad place to be I suppose. The contrasting numbers on the front are a good use of the Dodgers classic setup that really works. The solid alternate is a little boring but fine I suppose. I suspect that one will be swapped out after a couple of years (maybe go back to a red?) as the alternates often are. The Twin Cities Alternate is clean and sharp but lacks some color or contrast to really pop.

That brings me to my main criticism: the M hats? No! It’s the blue; it’s gone! The Twins have always been a fundamentally 33/33/33 Red/White/Navy team because of their origin as the Washington Sens, ala the National Flag, and DC. The mix of colors is still spot on in terms of ratios and weights and has the right mix of emphasis on the three primary colors. The sleeve and pants stripes do a great job with this in particular. But…the Navy has been made significantly darker, to the point where I can’t see it as anything but solid black in any of the shown views. If there’s blue in there it’s very midnight not even really navy at this point and I think that’s wrong. The impressions given then are more of a red & black team rather than a red & blue team, which is a big departure, and not a good one. The Twin Cities jersey in particular looks like it was rendered in monochrome and that doesn’t work well. Personally, I would have done a couple of shades lighter instead, and there was plenty of room to do that without coming anywhere near the territory of the Royals or Dodgers. Imagine the whole well-designed set with a brighter shade of navy, kind of the Seahawks/Patriots/Titans navy from the NFL and I think you can see a slightly better set there. More on the color scheme: Lukas doesn’t get the Twins clearly when he says he doesn’t know if they are a red or blue team. As I said above, take a look at the U.S. flag to understand the color balance of the team for the last 120 years (even the simple Washington unis used typically red W’s on a blue cap and so on). Not red or blue, red AND blue. Does this mean Lukas doesn’t like the U.S. flag? is it for the same reason he likes the red star? Is “Paul Lukas” in fact a nom de guerre ala “Vladimir Lenin” or “Josef Stalin”? Can we conclude that he may, in fact, be a mono-color-promoting mole with the nefarious intent to convert North American Sports to a RED POWER ideological brainwashing template?*

That doesn’t mean I love the M, it is quite plain and doesn’t have much to distinguish it…and why the odd 4-pointed star? The Wild, the old North Stars, everyone they’re trying to sync with uses an actual star for this north star mark, and they should have done that, too. I kept thinking the M itself looked familiar though, and it finally came to me. Look up an old Washington Senators hat. Now flip that W over. Ha! I think that might be the real origin of the M, and that actually makes me better with it. The clean old-school Sens logo was this team’s brand first and foremost so it should have a place here too, and that’s pretty cool.

*Since this is the internet I shall point out that the sentences at the end of this paragraph are satire. Be advised.

bland, uninspiring, weak. why bother?

“Couldn’t they find someone with better handwriting?” That’s what my brain has never stopped asking itself since I was a kid when I’d see the Twins on TV.

Overall, I liked the Twins look well enough over the years. But that original “Twins” script always felt a bit sloppy. At least that part is better now.

No outlines, no Minnie and Paul, no powder blue, pants striping with pinstripes (a no no indeed), ugly numbers and the semi-Marlins hat with almost invisible North Star are really too bad, Twins!
Because I do like the TC adjustment, I do like the Twin Cities uniform and hat plus the pinstripes on the away set. But it is all too minimalistic for my taste. I keep repeating the current taste for oversimplified practice uniforms in all sports with no additional colors and no team details, just black and white and very sparse graphic details. If these were reversible they would become the most popular MLB uniforms.