Tim Tebow plays in his second year in the Minor Leagues in the organization of the New York Mets and has now been elected to the All-Star Game. Time to take a close look at how the sporting development of the former NFL quarterback is progressing and what his chances are of playing in the MLB one day.
Tim Tebow takes to the record in the Eastern League All-Star Game and directly beats a double for the East Division team. In the end, he is 1-4 and has completed all nine innings as number-9 hitter and designated hitter. 4:4 it’s over and a hitting competition brings the decision in favor of the West Division. But Tebow had his big entrance.
All-Star Tim Tebow. A word combination that one would not necessarily have expected in relation to professional baseball. But in 2018 it came into being! Tim Tebow was indeed voted into the Eastern League All-Star Game.
The star of the Binghamton Rumble Ponies, the Double-A team of the New York Mets, actually made it into the All-Star team. So has he really reached this level and has a realistic chance to land in the MLB one day against all expectations?
First of all, one should consider what this is really about. In the Minor Leagues, an All-Star election is first and foremost a fan election! And – surprise – Tim Tebow is extremely popular, no matter where he goes. This was the case in college as quarterback of the Florida Gators, and it did not change during his time with the Denver Broncos and New York Jets.
Of course, he was only of limited sporting value in the NFL, so his All-Star nomination this year is by no means an indicator of his sporting performance in the current season.
However, these sports performances are what will ultimately be decisive for Tebow when it comes to whether we see him in the Big Leagues at some point.
So let’s take a look at what Tebow has shown so far in his first season at Double-A level – in his 31st year of life and in his second year as a professional. First it stands out that it comes to 105 wRC+ (weighted Runs created Plus). This value says trivially that it is five percent better in total run production than the league average. So Tebow is better than the league average!
However – and this should come as no surprise to anyone – so are many others. If you look at the top 30 Eastern League players alone, Tebow doesn’t even show up. By comparison, Vladimir Guerrero Jr, the top baseball prospect after the MLB debuts of Shohei Ohtani and Ronald Acuna Jr. comes in at 203 – almost twice as much as Tebow. And Guerrero is 19 years old.
If you look at classical statistics for simplicity’s sake, Tebow gets under the wheels even more clearly in comparison. In 76 games he beat five home runs and scored strikeouts in 35.6 percent of his at-bats – he only gets walks in 7.9 percent. Not a good foundation for a great baseball career.
To make matters worse, its current strike average, which is acceptable at .270, is supported by a.423 BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play). This statistic shows how high the success rate of a hitter is when he hits the ball into the field, i.e. neither hits a home run nor a strikeout. However, this value tends to balance over time – .423 is extremely high, so it could soon collapse quite a bit and then its average could also drop dramatically.
It’s pointless to compare last year’s 126 games across Low- and High-A-Ball with this year, but it’s noticeable that the bank’s performance has almost improved. However, its strikeout rate also rose by more than ten percent, which is again bad.
Tebow’s season started very positively, he hit a home run right in his Double-A debut. This promoted the predominant hype all the more, although people in Binghamton/New York were already convinced of Tebow and his appearance anyway.
Various restaurants in the tranquil town (almost 47,000 inhabitants) set themselves the task of naming dishes after Tebow. There is the “Tebow Time Pale Ale” or rather the “Tebow Burrito”. What Tebow himself thinks about this has not been handed down, but overall he likes it there very much: “What I like most about Binghamton are the people,” Tebow told the New York Post. “Wherever I went, people welcomed me.”
Tebow’s presence also had a correspondingly positive effect on the average audience at the NYSEG stadium as well as at the guest performances for the competition. Tebow is loved no matter what he does in the field.
Not so long ago, a ball flew on his head and became a triple. A scene that made you laugh. But also one that indicates how the defensive skills of the former quarterback in Left Field continue to develop. He is not a light in the field and still has problems even moving correctly to the ball.
Experience shows that the abilities of a baseball player in the field do not improve with increasing age. In this respect, Tebow has to convince with his bat, which he has not been able to do so far.
Tebow just beat .270 with a .727 OPS in Double-A. Like Tebow, Peter Alonso (23 years old) and Jeff McNeil (26) started the year in Binghamton. Alonso, the Mets organization’s second biggest talent according to MLBPipeline.com beat .314 with a 1,113 OPS and was promoted to the Triple-A team in Las Vegas after 65 games. McNeil in turn beat .327 with a 1,028 OPS and is now also playing for the 51s.
McNeil was not even one of the top 30 prospects for the Mets before the season and has been convincingly self-promotioning ever since. Tebow, on the other hand, is, objectively speaking, miles away from these two.
Nevertheless, there are always experts and columnists who still demand Tebow’s promotion to Vegas or even into the MLB. Their arguments: On the one hand, he had shown with his previous performances that he could play baseball professionally. Secondly, in terms of MLB, it would be an attraction for the spectators, especially for the late part of the season, who would otherwise only be offered a team far away from good and evil in Flushing this year, which would probably have traded its best parts by then, as this is exactly what the current season is all about.
“Tebow has always been about time and whether his window would be big enough to make it,” NY Post quotes John Ricco, one of the interim general managers of Mets after Sandy Alderson’s health-related resignation. “He’s moving in the right direction.”
Ricco added: “He seems to be getting better every day and I know he made the All-Star team. And I also realize that this is exciting. He knows how to hold his own in the Double-A range.” But Ricco didn’t want to look any further ahead – a guest appearance this September to expand the MLB squad to 40 players is not to be expected.
When Tebow’s promotion was announced to the Double-A team after such a short time, there were quite a few who expected a clear break-in at Tebow. This did not happen, which is positive. However, he does not play at a level that would justify further promotion from a sporting point of view.
On the contrary: a promotion, possibly at the expense of a young player who would actually have earned it in sport, would be the wrong way. The Mets’ sporty slump in the MLB is one of the reasons for this. Every talent is needed, so it’s difficult to drag a 31-year-old who regularly brings spectators to the stands but not runs onto the scoreboard.
All-Star or not, Tim Tebow is an attraction – even if not with the bat in the hand or the glove. They belong in the circus, not in a big league ball park.
This article was published without previous view by the Major League Baseball.