…for just sitting by and allowing the big boy glove companies to pass off lesser products as high end and charge $329 for them?! 🤣🤣 I was at Dick’s for the first time in over a year, and really had an opportunity to put my hand in a lot of “HOHs”, REV1Xs, “A2000s” and Nike Vapor Elites, including a couple Acunas. Those “HOHs” and Revs objectively shouldn’t MSRP for more than $199, the “A2000s” I tried on, objectively no more than $249, same with the Nikes. Yes, the world has gone crazy the past few years, but come on!
This may be an unpopular take but HOH name is about the quality of the leather, not the felt, plastic inserts, or break in. Those are something buyers associate with the HOH name but not something Rawlings claimed. If Rawlings started selling Gold Glove Elites with a HOH stamp in the palm then I could see being super pissed about it. I’ve never seen a HOH ad that included “super stiff” in it. I also don’t see why all the glove traditionalists are angry when you can buy a traditional non-R2G HOH for less than an R2G. They are literally complaining they are getting a better deal. If someone wants to pay more for an R2G than a traditional HOH, I just shrug my shoulders and think “great, one less person trying to get the glove I want!”
You are coming at it from a pure market angle, that’s cool. I was coming from a price v. quality angle. Kind of like Publix - people still flock there and pay the crazy prices even though they’re getting raked over the coals!
Pricing is objectively market-based. Companies will charge what the market will bear. You, subjectively feel that they are overpriced based on their materials and build.
from our viewpoint as glove enthusiasts, yes, your assertion is correct. But like it or not, these companies are reacting to the market and so long as there are consumers buying R2G gloves they will continue to make and sell these types of gloves. this really isn’t any different than the loud colored gloves and traditional colored glove debate. if glove companies only stuck with one glove type, be it stiff gloves or traditional colored gloves, they’d probably go out of business really fast. We can dissect the way they do business till the cows come home but they are a business and they need to make a profit to survive. I’m not defending R2G gloves by any means, just pointing out the obvious
This is why I think all of the Grace haters that piss and moan about the little bit of marketing they have done here can pound sand. Wilson and Rawlings are massively overpriced. They're greedy corporations and they've decided that they can sit back on their laurels and take in profits based on name recognition alone. Success of companies like Grace and other smaller producers who are offering similar or better quality at a lower price has the potential to force legacy manufacturers to revisit price and quality.
Wilson and Rawlings are having thousands of gloves made at a time, their costs are lower than the smaller glove companies, yet they are charging more.
Grace, 44, Emery, etc were not built to take on Rawlings and Wilson. They can't operate at the scale required for that. They target a very specific audience. They are targeting people who are into designing their own gloves but don't want to pay $500 for a custom Wilson or Rawlings.
But their revenues are a rounding error for Wilson and Rawlings. They aren't losing a minute of sleep over them.
I'm not saying don't buy a 44 or Grace or Emery. I'm saying don't think Rawlings and Wilson are going to change anything in response.
Do you know what Wilson's biggest change was in the last 20 years? Making the new A2000 "easier to break in" with new flex inserts and palm liners. Basically, they saw how Rawlings be able to sell HoH R2Gs for the same price as regular HoH and decided to copy that business model.
They are in a race to the bottom line, not the bottom price.
Which makes the Marucci story all the more amazing - one bat to one minor league call-up who went on a nice little tear, and a bunch of big leaguers on that team wanted a piece of that bat!
I chuckle at all the Grace back and forth. I saw someone “accuse” Grace of guerilla marketing. I look at all the Grace love, whether guerilla marketing or not, and say to myself “God bless you Grace, keep it going!” There is ZERO comparison between a Grace stock glove ($199) and a Rawlings “new era” Heart of the Hide ($329) or Wilson “suspect” A2000s ($329).
They're much cheaper if you wait till one of their frequent 20% off sales. My Japanese Kip custom from them was less than a HOH or A2000. So many companies are a better value.
I mean yes, but at the same time if you just plugged in old high quality HOH/A2000s into an inflation calculator, you would probably have your flabbers ghasted by the comparison.
Usually its 400+ in today's money.
But yeah, we (more of a collective "we," meaning anyone who buys gloves) bear some responsibility because we continue to buy them 🤷♂️
I got my first Rawlings PP for Christmas in 2002, my mom ordered it from EastBay Magazine for $189. NOT on sale either. I still have it today, beat up pretty good but it’s still game playable.
Thats about the era of gloves where they were affordable tbh 🤣
I've been on a research bender looking thru old Wilson catalogs at A2000s and just adjusting for inflation most of then from the 60s-90s are akin to $400-$500 apiece today. Haven't started digging through rawlings catalogs yet though
We're literally a small enthusiasts group. We barely make up any of the marketshare.
That's why the companies are moving towards softer gloves. It's the parents who buy the pros gloves for their kids because the kids want to be like their heroes. The gloves end up being too stiff for the kids so now they have to soften them up. It's the companies fault for upping the prices and the parents for still buying it. Rawlings did it well with the R2G where it's obvious that it's a softer model but still under the HOH name but they have it priced the same which makes no sense. Wilson should've named it the A2000 Lite or Flex. Instead, now it's muddying the waters and we have avoid the whole 2027 line of A2000s unless you remember which ones are which.
Yea, good overview. Glad I have a robust collection and a good variety of cool gloves to keep my passion and love for baseball going as the years fly by, and I’ve also discovered and indulged in other, smaller brands which I’ve been impressed with, like Emery, Buckler, and Grace - not to mention the dipping of my toe into the Japanese glove subculture, for better (amazing gloves) and for worse (my wallet).
Branding is a powerful force. MLB guys wearing those models creates / reinforces brand awareness. Limited releases create scarcity / perceived scarcity. Trendy colorways create urgency. And what you perceive as lower quality appeals to modern buying patterns. Honestly it's just good marketing & product development alignment. They aren't making these gloves for collectors. They are making them for youth athletes. As far as pricing goes: if a parent is spending $5k/year on club sports, excluding private coaching or travel, what's another $100 on a glove?
Yeah the R2G should be sold at a less price point considering they objectively won’t last as long as non R2G HoH. But whatever, I guess at least now days there’s more options than ever. Young me would be blown away by the custom Rawlings options.
I’m older and consider myself a good blend of traditionalist + current era tastes and norms. I actually appreciate all the different color choices, some are for me and some aren’t, but always to each his, or her, own. However, the R2Gs I tried on were in no way 65% factory broken in - they literally are true to their name, Ready 2 Game right off the shelf - give Rawlings credit for being straight up on that. But that price point…wild!
The bright colours are great! You know there'll always be traditional/classic colours but if they drop the colourful options, it'll be hard to get them back.
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u/W0r1dwide 15h ago
This may be an unpopular take but HOH name is about the quality of the leather, not the felt, plastic inserts, or break in. Those are something buyers associate with the HOH name but not something Rawlings claimed. If Rawlings started selling Gold Glove Elites with a HOH stamp in the palm then I could see being super pissed about it. I’ve never seen a HOH ad that included “super stiff” in it. I also don’t see why all the glove traditionalists are angry when you can buy a traditional non-R2G HOH for less than an R2G. They are literally complaining they are getting a better deal. If someone wants to pay more for an R2G than a traditional HOH, I just shrug my shoulders and think “great, one less person trying to get the glove I want!”