MLB Players Are Clamoring for Swag. Outfitting Them Is Big Business

On Mondays, Bryce Harper wears his self-proclaimed “dad jeans.” The blue cleats look like denim and feature a leather patch and cross-stitching. “I based them off my Wranglers,” Harper tells Front Office Sports in the visiting team clubhouse at Citi Field.

Harper, 31, the Phillies’ first baseman—and arguably one of the few truly famous baseball players—has a tidy schedule for his footwear from Under Armour, which he’s partnered with for more than a decade as part of what was once the largest endorsement deal signed by a baseball player. 

Tuesdays, he wears a mint-colored, holographic pair made in partnership with trading card company PSA; Wednesdays are a traditional Phillies-red pair. On Thursdays or Sundays—depending on when the Eagles play—his cleats are, of course, Kelly green. There’s a pair to match the blue ombré City Connect uniforms the team wears on Fridays. And on Saturdays, Harper pays homage to the Phillie Phanatic. 

He’s also sported plenty of one-offs, including a holographic pair for the London series, and another themed for Philly’s iconic convenience store Wawa, with a matching headband. (He stopped wearing them because Major League Baseball fined him for improper advertising; “Obviously I understand why,” he says, “but also I think kids love it.”) 

In the clubhouse, Harper pulls out his phone to open a deck from Under Armour featuring mock-ups of potential 2025 cleats. Motifs for inspiration include the Philadelphia Art Museum, Nintendo 64, friendship bracelets, Mister Softee, and Princess Diana wearing an Eagles varsity jacket. He says he approved about eight of the designs.

In an effort to encourage individuality, MLB loosened restrictions on shoe color a few seasons ago. Since then, players have turned their attention to the rest of their on-field accessories, too. Now, as protective gear becomes more prominent and prevalent across baseball for practical reasons, players are looking to capitalize on the newfound canvases for customization. 

Savvy companies and designers are stepping up to fill this space. And the result is a new trend set by big leaguers—and one that’s trickling down to the next generation of players who are eager to buck the uniform part of team sports. 

For a league that has struggled to market even its best players to a mainstream audience, allowing this kind of aesthetic expression has obvious benefits. Just a few years removed from when bat flips were considered controversial shows of ego, players wear their personalities on their feet … and hands … and shins.

Ahead of the 2019 season—after several notable instances of players complaining publicly about being barred from or punished for wearing custom cleats—MLB relaxed the restrictions that had long mandated 51% of a player’s cleat must feature his team’s primary color. Even though the rule as written at the time still included a number of specifications, almost immediately, custom cleats of all kinds began to flourish. 

Dedicated footwear has since become the go-to way for players to honor their mothers, fathers, forebearers, mentors, kids, dogs, and first responders. Or, to simply demonstrate a commitment to style and standing out. And rather than prohibit this kind of flamboyance, the league now promotes it—and not just as part of the revamped Players’ Weekend, which used to be the only opportunity for personalized cleats. When Mariners center fielder Julio Rodríguez sports purple, crystal-encrusted cleats in-game, MLB’s official social media account highlights the flashy footwear. The Yankees secured the American League’s top seed with a lineup that includes the top two offensive forces in the AL—but MLB’s Instagram is committed to helping them shake their stodgy reputation with celebrations of their “swag.” It’s all part of an unsubtle push to keep baseball culturally relevant and connect to kids these days through ever-evolving fashion.

Cleats were an obvious opportunity for players to show a little personality. But footwear opened the floodgates. Now, for accessories, hands are the new feet. 

Mets outfielder Harrison Bader tells FOS he doesn’t have a shoe deal—he’s concentrated elsewhere. Bader became the first major leaguer to sign with the small, family-owned Bruce Bolt, which specializes in batting gloves. (Bader declined to specify what his financial relationship is with the company.) Bader used to be a Nike athlete and praises its general sportswear. But Nike is not baseball specific, and he found its “mass-produced” batting gloves were giving him trouble at the plate, which prompted his switch.

Every season since 2021, he’s dropped a new colorway. Last year, while on the Yankees, they were black with a green trim to match the Statue of Liberty. This year, the Mets gave him carte blanche, and Bader opted for an eye-catching pink-and-lavender series.

“MLB is allowing us to express ourselves that way—through colors and whatnot—and companies, I think, are catching on,” Bader says. “The companies that are doing it the best are the ones that are gaining the major league players’ attention, and we’re getting them action on the field. Which, at the end of the day, is all that matters. Getting your logo, getting your design, on the field.” 

Direct-to-consumer commerce has lowered the barrier to entry for entrepreneurs, and changing norms within the game have created a new demand for creative—if not sometimes ostentatious—antidotes to uniformity. “I would think that, in general, the bigger companies are less inventive, less passionate about these products,” says Mike Carozza, who has been obsessively tracking athletes’ gear for his site What Pros Wear since 2012. 

Rajai Davis claims to have been one of the originators of the sliding mitt when he was on the Tigers. Davis, now MLB’s senior director of on-field operations, already wore a rudimentary protective glove, but he was concerned he would jam his exposed thumb sliding head-first into the bag. In 2014, a team trainer took what Davis was using at the time home to his wife, and she sewed it into what has since become colloquially known as the “oven mitt.”

Davis retired after the 2019 season, but some of the game’s recent changes would have suited the boisterous speedster who stole 415 career bases. Rules specifically designed to encourage action on the base paths have proved effective—stolen base success rates are up around baseball. And his solution for keeping his fingers safe is no longer an anomaly—sliding mitts are everywhere, and they’re practically art pieces. 

“I definitely would have been a flashy-sliding-mitt guy,” Davis says. “I just wanted to show my personality. So when you look at [a player] you’re like, ‘That guy’s got personality; look at his glove!” 

These days, the sliding mitts with the most personality are a product of a small company called Absolutely Ridiculous. The operation, which is just a few years old and based in Nashville, is helmed by an anonymous artist who goes by the moniker X. 

A former college baseball player from the Pacific Northwest, X—whose identity is known to many if not all of his big league clients, and they trust him in part for his playing experience—started the brand with a single, ice-cream-themed fielder’s glove (of which there are now many iterations). The concept was inspired by his dad’s unique spin on the term “snow cone catch,” saying how a ball at the tip of the glove looked like a scoop of ice cream sitting atop a cone. But the gloves were expensive—starting at $375—and slow to produce. They needed a more accessible item. They landed on sliding mitts—the right shape for the ice cream theme and relatively untapped territory for innovative design. 

The first sliding mitts, which generally range in price from $75 to $85, went to market in 2022 and started selling out immediately. Two years later, Absolutely Ridiculous has adopted a sneaker-style “drop” system for frequent new releases—from the religious to the extraterrestrial—and a cadre of big leaguers working as brand ambassadors in the clubhouse, on the field, and in promotional material. Despite the skyrocketing popularity and cultural appeal of the sliding mitts, Absolutely Ridiculous plans to remain limited with official affiliation, signing only players who reach out themselves or through their agents “so that we can over-deliver for any player we sign,” X tells FOS. That means being responsive to a player’s vision and nimble enough to meet his in-season needs.

And players are, indeed, looking for X’s designs. Rangers rookie sensation Evan Carter wore one of Absolutely Ridiculous’s sliding mitts in the 2023 World Series—that one was Dracula-inspired to align with the Halloween season, but when Carter signed on with the brand this season it debuted a cowboy-inspired mitt as his signature style. When the Yankees called up their top prospect this September, Jasson Domínguez, he arrived with an alien mitt poking out of his back pocket. Elly De La Cruz stole an MLB-best 67 bases for the Reds while rotating through (almost) every sliding mitt the company makes. Except for some select one-offs, he has one of each and no particular favorite. 

Jazz Chisholm Jr. was on the cover of MLB The Show 23 flaunting his chains with the Marlins, but he was traded midseason this year to the Yankees—a team that takes unwritten rules about aesthetic conformity to the next level with their hair and beard policy. Now he’s having an offensive breakout while flashing Absolutely Ridiculous’s bold accessories. Chisholm is more than just affiliated with the brand—he’s part owner and weighs in on designs as its director of culture. Chisholm and X met years ago, before Absolutely Ridiculous launched. They reconnected when X sent him one of the earliest ice cream gloves to try, and Chisholm started wearing it in games. 

Now, “I text him new designs and he hits me with feedback,” X says. “He keeps me up-to-date on what’s popular in the clubhouse, brings ideas to the table. He is active and always available.”

Chisholm says the Yankees have been accepting of his style—at least tacitly. “I haven’t even asked about it. I’ve just been wearing them,” he says.

Chisholm’s designs are examples or previews of what is available to the public—his in-game exploits serve as advertising for new collections. By contrast, Harper is also incredibly involved in the process, but much of what he wears is exclusive to him. For each of his carefully selected cleat designs, there is a matching suite of Absolutely Ridiculous accessories. And as he’s working with Under Armour on the 2025 looks, they’re looping X in as early as possible. 

“We’ll send him those eight pairs from Under Armour, and like the number of colors and stuff like that,” Harper says of the styles he approved from the slate the company sent him. “And he’ll do my belts, he’ll do my shin guards and the sliding mitt as well.” (Harper tells FOS he’s thinking about adding socks into the equation for next season as well.)

“[Absolutely Ridiculous] is kind of a microcosm for what’s happening a little bit, and they’re doing it very well,” says Carozza. The mitts exist at the confluence of customization, increased base stealing, and the unapologetic use of extra padding to stay safe. 

“It is the ‘it’ item,” he says, “and I would definitely credit that brand for that for sure.” 

“I always dreamed of making it to the big leagues, but never thought that this is how I would make it there,” X says. 

For all the high-profile work he does with professionals, X says his primary market is 8- to 15-year-old youth baseball players. Just like kids of every generation, they want to emulate their athletic idols. But now that means mimicking not only their favorite player’s swing, but their swag, too. 

“Every kid has a gigantic, way-too-big-for-him, sliding mitt in his right pocket when they’re batting,” Carozza says. “That’s the look; you want to have that sliding mitt in your back pocket. That’s the cool thing.”

And likely all the more so because their elders don’t quite get it. Recently, retired players Erik Kratz and A.J. Pierzynski griped about that trend—the ever-present sliding mitts on Little League players, not just on base paths but at the plate and in the field, too—on their YouTube show Foul Territory. 

“You don’t need to hit with it,” Pierzynski says. 

But of course, “need” is not the point. Style is. Even if it’s not practical, kids want to look like the big leaguers in their pricey sliding mitts. A TikTok video with more than 11 million views perfectly encapsulates this phenomenon: kids playing with actual (affordable) oven mitts protruding from their pockets as an economical alternative to Absolutely Ridiculous’s $70-and-up options. 

While kids aspire to look—and presumably play—like him, Harper claims he’s just trying to keep up. Last year, he gave one of his exclusive faux-fur Phanatic mitts to his teammate Nick Castellanos’s 11-year-old son, Liam, much to Liam’s delight. 

But back in the clubhouse, Harper considers his veritable kingdom of custom gear and the decision to partner with a boutique brand like Absolutely Ridiculous. The father of three concludes he is not the progenitor of what is trendy in sports style but an eager acolyte.

That’s what attracted him to X’s sliding mitts in the first place. Harper noticed kids were starting to wear them and says that whenever he can, he tries to “follow what youth baseball is doing.”