Pirates offseason gets glowing review from former GM who gave up on them weeks ago

Just a couple of weeks ago, former MLB general manager Jim Bowden bravely proposed the boldest (and most tone-deaf) idea in modern sports discourse: if your team doesn't win, simply stop being a fan.

Bowden's advice to followers of the Pittsburgh Pirates and other so-called “bottom-15 markets” was basically this: If your owner doesn’t spend and your team doesn’t win enough, you should simply detach yourself emotionally, select a glamorous big-market franchise — perhaps the Los Angeles Dodgers — and enjoy the winning from afar.

No loyalty. No civic pride. No generational heartbreak. Just vibe-shopping for championships like you’re browsing Netflix thumbnails.

Cool. Got it. Thanks, Jim. Tremendous insight from a man who worked inside the industry for decades.

Because apparently fandom is now a transactional commodity — a streaming bundle, if you will — something you drop the second the programming disappoints you. Forget the years you spent loving the Pirates with your parents, or the memories stitched into black-and-gold jerseys, or the agony and joy of sticking by a team through the absolute worst stretches imaginable.

Nope. Bowden said it himself: Just stop caring. Trade yourself.

So imagine the whiplash when, just weeks later, that same Bowden resurfaced with a brand-new take.

The Pirates, Bowden now says, are the No. 2 most-improved team in baseball this offseason. Yes — those same Pirates that he told you to abandon and encouraged you to emotionally divest from.

Now suddenly the Pirates deserve bouquets of praise — thanks to the additions of Brandon Lowe, Ryan O’Hearn and Jhostynxon Garcia — and Pirates fans should be… what? Proud again? Tuned back in? Emotionally available once more?

Did we get permission to resume caring, Jim? Or should we still be wearing Dodger blue while secretly checking Pirates box scores on our phones?

Jim Bowden's Pirates offseason love fest is too little, too late

This isn’t about disagreeing with the assessment — because frankly, the Pirates have improved. Lowe brings real thump. O’Hearn adds quality at-bats and professionalism. Garcia brings tools and upside. It’s been a competent winter –– maybe even, dare we say, encouraging.

But the sheer detachment with which Bowden flips his narrative — from “leave your team” to “wow, great job, Pirates!” — is exactly what makes fans furious. Because we don’t get to flip like that.

We don’t get to wake up one morning and say “eh, losing is lame, I’ll just root for the Dodgers now.” We don’t get to discard the heartache, erase the scars, pretend the losing seasons didn’t shape our identity as fans — and as a city.

Pirates fans stayed. Through ownership frustration. Through payroll mockery. Through late-season collapses. Through rebuild-upon-rebuild. Through national voices sneering at the system and at us.

We didn’t trade ourselves. We waited, we endured, and we believed –– sometimes irrationally –– that good baseball would eventually return to Pittsburgh. And now, at the first sign of actual competence, here comes Bowden — the same guy who told you loyalty wasn’t worth it — hopping back in the bandwagon seat to praise the progress.

That’s not fandom. That’s content farming. And it’s insulting.

Pittsburgh sports fans aren’t fickle. We’re not casual. We don’t just root for laundry — we root for our laundry. Our ballpark. Our skyline. Our history. Our future. Our city.

We never asked for approval from a former GM-turned-columnist. We just asked for a team worth believing in. And when it finally starts to look like that might be happening? Well, some of us don’t need to switch jerseys to appreciate it.