Logo news! Last year the Marlins made waves with their new logo, and that was followed by the Blue Jays, Padres, and Orioles. The new Orioles' logo was responsible for their surprising playoff berth according to scientists¹, so it's no surprise that there are more logo changes in store this offseason. First up, the Houston Astros, who will be moving to the American League West next season.

By way of Ernest Moreno and SportsLogos.net, we have a sneak preview:

As SportsLogos points out, there have been other leaks of the Astros' new logo, including baseball-card proofs and some fancy Photoshop work. Those were somewhat inconclusive, but the shirt looks like a pretty conclusive piece of evidence.

Which brings us to the part of the news item where we review the logo. It's replacing this:

You can view the history of Astros logos here. Personally, I never liked any of them. They started with electrons circling an air filter, and they got progressively worse, though never obnoxious or horrible. The new one is quiet. Quiet is good in a logo, I think.

It's kind of retro-future, too. It looks like something that would be on the flag of a fascist-leaning government in a distant dystopia. Maybe something you'd see in Bioshock 3 or a sequel to Starship Troopers. That's not a bad thing. That means the Astros will bend governments and countries to their philosophy one day. This is just the beginning of a new era.

All in all: a solid B. Maybe even a B+. It's an improvement over the boring, overly busy script of the last logo.

And if the new logo worked for the Orioles, well ...