A Knee-Jerk Reaction to the Royals' New Uniforms
Before you ask, yes, it is a slow news day.
The Kansas City Royals have had a quality set of uniforms for the longest of time, with the classic home whites that give off an aura of professionalism and a set of alternate and road uniforms that are tastefully done as well.
The only time the Royals have had some questionable uniforms was during the early 2000s, when they were rocking some suspect vest combinations. But even that era produced a black uniform that some fans are clamoring for to come back as an alternate jersey along with the powder blues.
With that said, we aren't here to discuss jerseys from 1985, 2005, or even 2015. We're here to talk about and grade the newest collection of jerseys the Royals debuted today.*
*These are my opinions and not the opinions of the entire Inside the Royals staff. All images below are from the Royals' direct release.
Road Alternates: C+
These are a downgrade, in my opinion, from KC's royal blue alternates this season. If they would’ve transferred over the powder blue and white trim from this year's jersey to this new one, I probably would’ve given it a solid B.
I feel like you could buy this uniform and not have to worry about being made fun of for rocking a bad fit.
The good news with these uniforms is that they are able to be tinkered with, so they'll be able to make minor adjustments to them without having to scrap the entire look.
Road Primary: D-
These are horrendous — no two ways about it. There are no grey uniforms in baseball that are good, but the Royals at least had one that was passable. Plus, they were one of the very few teams that used cursive for both their home and road uniforms.
Now, we’re given this piece that your Great-Aunt Carol buys you for Christmas because she doesn't know what the uniforms look like. If you pay over $100 for this, you either have more money than sense or have no taste.
Look at Nicky Lopez's face. He can't even believe that they screwed these uniforms this badly. You don't have your leading hitter and OBP leader model this type of uniform.
Home Alternate: B+
They finally fixed the two problems with this year’s powder blue uniforms, which were the unneeded trim and the color.
The old powder blues weren’t the correct shade of powder blue and looked too metallic when they needed to be more matte.
The only thing holding these back is the lack of powder blue pants. It’s like getting every question on an advanced calculus test correct but writing the wrong answer for 2+2. The Royals were so close to pulling off uniform perfection but fell at the final hurdle. But like the road alternates, these are adjustable uniforms and can be corrected very easily in the future.
Home Primary: A
They didn’t really change anything here, which is good because the Royals already have a top-five home uniform. Blue on white is an elite uniform color combination and it takes a lot to screw it up.
Again, the only time the Royals dropped the ball with their home jerseys was when they made it a vest and added some black back glow that perfectly encapsulated how wayward the Royals were back then.
If the old saying "look good, play good" holds true, the Royals will be absolutely abysmal on the road and dominant at home.
It was a mixed bag from the Royals if we're being honest but outside of the road primaries, they didn't produce anything horrendous. You will be able to comfortably buy three of these uniforms and not have to worry about being judged harshly. Perhaps an Art Stewart remembrance patch will be added to these uniforms at some point so the Royals can honor their Hall of Fame scout who passed away this year.
