Pirates fans being more angry about Konnor Griffin than Andrew McCutchen says it all

There’s no nice way to say this, so let’s not bother pretending otherwise: Pittsburgh Pirates fans are mad about the wrong thing.

Yes, Konnor Griffin not making the Opening Day roster sparked outrage. Social media was flooded. Think pieces flew. Service-time conspiracies were dusted off like it was 2015 again. A 19-year-old with 98 at-bats above Class A became the hill to die on.

Meanwhile, Andrew McCutchen — the face of the franchise, the bridge between eras, the player who dragged this organization back into relevance — was left twisting in the wind all offseason… and the reaction was a collective shrug.

That disconnect? It says everything.

Because here’s the reality: Griffin not making the roster is defensible. You might not like it, but it’s rational. He’s 19. He struck out 13 times in 46 spring plate appearances. He finished camp 2-for-18 with eight strikeouts. He has barely played above Class A. Development isn’t linear, and rushing him for vibes and jersey sales would be malpractice.

You know what wasn’t defensible? How the Pirates handled McCutchen.

This wasn’t just another aging veteran looking for one more shot. This was the guy. The 2013 MVP. The leader of the last Pirates team that actually mattered. The cultural reset button for a franchise that had spent two decades as a punchline.

And the Pirates couldn’t even give him clarity.

Instead, they slow-played him. They let him publicly hint he wanted to return. They let him express frustration about being excluded from PiratesFest — a detail that should’ve embarrassed the organization far more than it did. Then, when they finally made their move, it wasn’t to bring him back. It was to sign Marcell Ozuna and effectively shut the door.

McCutchen ends up in Texas on a minor league deal at age 39. The Pirates post a farewell graphic after the fact. “Famalee Forever,” after months of silence. And fans? Mostly quiet.

Andrew McCutchen making Rangers Opening Day roster just created hellscape Pirates storyline

And now comes the most frustrating part. McCutchen didn’t just land somewhere — he hit his way onto the Texas Rangers’ Opening Day roster. A 39-year-old franchise icon, discarded by Pittsburgh, goes to camp on a minor-league deal and forces his way onto a contender’s bench with a .444 spring batting average and a 1.361 OPS.

If he produces — or worse, if Joc Pederson continues to struggle and opens up more DH at-bats — every single McCutchen highlight in a Rangers uniform becomes a flashing neon sign of what the Pirates chose not to value. That’s a season-long storyline waiting to haunt them.

To be clear, this isn’t an argument that McCutchen should’ve made the Pirates' Opening Day roster over Griffin — or that the two decisions are even directly connected. The issue isn’t who deserved a roster spot. It’s which situation drew outrage, and which one didn’t.

Griffin starting in the minors is a baseball decision rooted in development. McCutchen’s situation was an organizational and cultural decision about how you treat a franchise icon. Those are two completely different conversations.

That’s the part that should bother Pirates fans. Because the Griffin outrage isn’t really about Griffin. It’s about hope. He represents the future. The mystery box. The “what if.” It’s easy to get loud about potential.

But McCutchen represented something harder. Accountability. Standards. The idea that how you treat your legends actually matters.

And when the reaction to his exit is muted while a teenager’s assignment to Triple-A becomes a crisis, it reveals a fanbase that’s been conditioned to accept dysfunction — as long as there’s a shiny prospect to distract from it.