Former Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow is trying his hand at professional baseball, as we learned earlier this year. The Mets signed him to minor-league deal and after going 4-14 in instructionals, he was placed on an Arizona Fall League roster.
Thus far, the results are not very good.
As we've noted several times before, Tebow is viewed as a project and the Arizona Fall League isn't really a place for that. It houses the best prospects in baseball, as teams send six players from their minor-league system -- from Double-A and Triple-A, though each team can make two exceptions. Tebow is an exception, as he's never even been to Rookie Ball, which is below Class A.
Quite simply, it wouldn't be surprising to see Tebow overmatched.
That's happening so far. First up, we saw the picture earlier this week of him running into a wall.
Through three games now, Tebow is 0-9 with three strikeouts. He does have two walks, and RBI and run. Three game sample sizes aren't to be judged as the be-all, end-all, obviously, but the review from scouting guru Keith Law of ESPN is about as unflattering as it gets.
Law starts his breakdown with this line:
Tebow the baseball player is not a baseball player; he's a washed-up quarterback who has size and nothing else.
And closes the evaluation of Tebow as a player with this line:
In short, there's absolutely no baseball justification for Tebow to be here.
The full story is here for those interested in the scouting breakdown.
Given that he's a project, maybe the AFL this season wasn't the best choice by the Mets. Then again, Tebow is 29 years old, not 19. They didn't have a lot of time to wait on him.
