I’ll open with this: hitting a baseball is hard. It’s a round ball hurtling through space – usually, over 90 miles per hour – with all kinds of movement on it, thrown by someone whose entire livelihood depends on you not hitting it. That’s not easy. However, it’s pretty clear that former Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow has been particularly bad at it for the Mets, at least by the standards of minor league baseball.
Tebow recently suffered a lacerated hand, which will cause him to miss potentially the rest of the 2019 season. He has been playing for the Syracuse Mets – a Triple-A affiliate of the New York Mets.
Prior to Tebow’s unfortunate injury, which apparently happened in the field, he was slashing an abysmal .163/.240/.255 with four home runs, 19 RBI, two stolen bases and 25 runs scored.
He possesses a solid ability to draw walks, doing so at a respectable 7.6% clip, but his 37.1% strikeout rate is horrific, even in a league that doesn’t seem to mind the spike in strikeouts.
Is Tim Tebow Done With the Mets?
Tebow’s return is up in the air, and while having him in the minor leagues has been good publicity for the Mets – which is rare these days – it’s going to be hard to justify giving him a roster spot over some other more deserving players.
A quick look in their minor league system shows multiple players, including Sam Haggerty and Barrett Barnes, who deserve a promotion to Triple-A over Tebow.
Haggerty is hitting .278 with 17 home runs as a 25-year-old, while Barnes is hitting .235, but with 12 home runs, at age 27. Both players are losing an opportunity to advance as long as Tebow is taking up a roster spot.
Don’t get me wrong, I fully support Tebow’s decision to try to play professional baseball – I’m not in the business of laughing at someone pursuing a dream. But that dream is dead, and even when his hand heals it is probably best for the former star quarterback to hang up his spikes – again – and pursue a career in broadcasting.
Time to give someone else a chance.
