Last season, the Mariners unveiled a new set of uniforms. The City Connect threads were created by Nike to honor the team’s local history. They were controversial in some respects. (Black pants?) But they were also functional baseball uniforms.

Which is a step better than what the Mariners (and other Major League Baseball teams) are dealing with so far in spring training. For the 2024 season, MLB switched to new uniforms designed by Nike and manufactured by a separate company called Fanatics. They were supposed to be lighter and better for performance. Instead, they are ill-fitting, ugly, and in some cases, uhh, scandalously translucent.

The uniforms are so bad that when infielder Michael Chavis posted a picture of his actual jersey on social media to announce that he had signed with the Mariners, a customer service rep from Fanatics reached out to apologize about the jersey, not realizing that Chavis was a pro posting his actual uniform. Take a look at the picture:

lmao Fanatics' new jerseys are so trash that their customer service team is responding "oops, that looks wrong, please contact us so we can replace your screwed-up jersey order" not realizing they're replying to... a photo of an actual MLB player's actual MLB uniform pic.twitter.com/LXQSRLXdHK

— ℳatt (@matttomic) February 21, 2024

The name is off-center. And what’s with that 10? You’ll also notice that the letters are weirdly tiny. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of this year’s uniforms with last year’s:

this is a travesty pic.twitter.com/8BuqlPhB83

— zachleft (@zachleft) February 24, 2024

They look like knockoffs, or free stadium giveaways, or a child’s Halloween costume gone wrong. Most of the problems come down to the cheapness and incompetence of Fanatics—a company whose ineptitude is already very familiar to NHL fans. But if you want to know more, sports uniform experts on the internet have devoted a lot of words to explaining what’s going wrong in very great detail.

Great detail is also something fans are getting when they look at some player’s media photos. (Click if you dare.) That’s because the material is thin to the point of being anatomically revealing. Or in the best case scenario, leaving the tucked-in portions of players' jerseys plainly visible underneath, and looking, in the words of the Seattle Times’ Adam Jude, “almost like the player is wearing a diaper.”  Of course, it could be worse. Some teams don’t even have enough of the see-through pants to outfit all their players in the first place.

There are other weird issues going on. The Mariners new spring training hats and their jerseys are different shades of teal, which isn’t criminal but does look weird. The MLB logo on the back of the jersey was moved down and it smooshes up against the players' names on the backs. According to players, the sizing of the pants is off. A cynical person might say that all of this can safely be ascribed to a general trend happening in pro sports for leagues and franchises to opt for cheap mass-produced garbage over investing in boring old quality craftsmanship. Not just talking about the Mariners roster-building strategy either.

The other day Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh told interviewers on 710-AM radio that players had raised the uniform question in a meeting with MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. It seems like a safe bet that at least some of these issues will be addressed by opening day. If not, well, we’ll be able to see right through it.