New York Mets: Tim Tebow promoted to High-A St. Lucie
By Oliver Jung
The pipe dream continues. The day before Florida is scheduled to face LSU in the College World Series Finals, a polarizing Gator football alumnus has stolen the headlines. The breaking news? He earned a promotion—between Minor League Baseball tiers.
The New York Mets have promoted Tim Tebow from Low-A ball to High-A St. Lucie. The 29-year-old former NFL quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner played his final game in left field for the Columbia Fireflies on Sunday night.
Tebow hit well below .250 (.222) in 64 Lo-A games this year, driving in 22 runs and scoring 29 of his own. Expected to be a potential power threat at the dish, Tebow only left the yard three times with Columbia while also striking out in more than a quarter of his at-bats. Two of those homers came in the first series of the season.
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Those aren’t numbers you would hope for (or expect) in a prospect climbing another rung of the minor-league ladder, and some have already accused the Mets of rushing Tebow through Rookie ball and Low-A to use him as a franchise sideshow for merchandise sales.
But even from a baseball perspective, Sandy Alderson had little choice but to move Tebow this summer: When New York signed the SEC Network analyst (a position he still holds) to a minor-league deal last September, the organization was inking a near-30-year-old “prospect” with the polish of a high school player—if that.
The Mets gambled that Tebow’s raw athleticism would develop rapidly into results on the diamond. It was an understandable, low-risk lottery ticket. After all, that same athleticism catapulted Tebow to an NFL playoff victory despite his lack of football polish, and he was purportedly a phenomenal high school baseball player.
As we get closer to the end of the now-outfielder’s first year in professional baseball, however, Tebow has shown few signs of developing into a big-league asset. But New York doesn’t have the luxury of giving him a few years to find his footing. His physical tools are at their peak now, and if Tebow follows a regular development track, he’ll already be in decline if/when he debuts in Queens. From Alderson’s perspective, he needs to either force Tebow through an accelerated process—hoping the growing pains will bear fruit down the road—or call off the experiment.
Unsurprisingly, it appears the Mets’ general manager picked the first option. Tebow’s chances at an eventual big-league call-up remain laughably slim, but at least New York is doing its part to give him a fair shake. Tebow himself, of course, was relentlessly optimistic during his final press conference in Columbia. Why not? If Tebow proved anything in Denver, it was that he’s a second-half player. Maybe his move to Florida will bring one more miracle to Gator Nation.