Good luck Tim Tebow thread

[Guest cooby]

I can't imagine why anyone would wish him ill will for being religious.

Maybe I'm not alone but if I am so be it. I've marched alone before.

[MFS62]

Sorry, Cooby. I didn't mean it that way.
This has nothing to do with his religion.
He will be such a media magnet for the next few weeks that some news about ballplayers who are fighting for roster spots may slip through the cracks.
This is a place to find that news instead of a catchall Spring Training thread or daily game threads.
There will be enough places to read/ hear about Tebow and his progress or lack thereof. ESPN will probably have a camera on him constantly.
Remember when we were encouraged to start new threads instead of bundling stuff into existing ones? That's what I did.

Later

[Guest 41Forever]

I wish him luck. I have no problem with him whatsoever.

[Guest d'Kong76]

The problem is he doesn't belong there any more than Garth Brooks.

[Guest cooby]

Eh PC has gone too far ... :-

[Edgy MD]

MFS62 wrote: This is a place to find that news instead of a catchall Spring Training thread or daily game threads.

This is a place to find information about wives and who is and isn't a douchebag.

[MFS62]

Edgy MD wrote: This is a place to find that news instead of a catchall Spring Training thread or daily game threads. This is a place to find information about wives and who is and isn't a douchebag.

That too.

Later

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

cooby wrote: Eh PC has gone too far ... :-

?

He's a guy who wouldn't give up his autumn day job for a season when every extra plate appearance counts, given his age/late start. He's a dilettante.

[Edgy MD]

He didn't really miss any time. Everybody starts about 50% of the time in the AFL. He got a comparable amount of plate appearances as anybody else.

[list:1v6dymzh][*:1v6dymzh]Champ Stuart: 33 games, 129 PA[/*:m:1v6dymzh]
[*:1v6dymzh]Gavin Cecchini: 29 games, 128 PA[/*:m:1v6dymzh]
[*:1v6dymzh]Tim Tebow: 33 games, 123 PA[/*:m:1v6dymzh]
[*:1v6dymzh]Matt Oberste: 22 games, 89 PA[/*:m:1v6dymzh][/list:u:1v6dymzh]

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

He was a three-day-a-week Instructional Leaguer for two months before that, passing up BP for college football weekends. He's a 29-year-old with a LOT of time to make up.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

All that's true, and will ultimately come out in the wash. In the meantime I care even less about fan displeasure with the attention Tebow gets than the attention itself.

[Lefty Specialist]

He's a sideshow. My gripe is that today he'll be getting at-bats that could have gone to somebody who in this universe would have a shot of someday actually playing for the Mets.

Billy Crystal actually got to bat in a Yankees spring training game, so I guess there's been worse.

[Frayed Knot]

My attitude to this all remains as it was back on page 1 of the original Tebow thread: that I'm pretty much indifferent to his signing.
But in fairness to him this is different from a Garth Brooks/Billy Crystal situation where they were over-age celebs looking to hang with the jocks for a week or so and get publicity for whatever project or charity they were running at the time. This is at least a pro athlete with some baseball background who's willing to put in the time and effort to see where it will lead.

And I expect my indifference to remain until one of two things happen:
a) it becomes obvious over time that he'll never succeed at the sport at which point the pressure falls to the Mets to pull the plug on this experiment before he's taking real ABs from more deserving players based on nothing more than his name such as Jordan did by being installed directly to, and spending an entire season at, the AA level despite being a .200 hitting corner OF without power [497 PA, .202/.289/.266, 3 HR]
or
he starts to show some real talent at which point things could start to get interesting

[Edgy MD]

After OPSing at .538 in the AFL—something like a AA level of play—he's likely going to be in Columbia. Likely joining him in that outfield unit there will be Jacob Zanon, Gene Cone, Arnaldo Berrios, and Jay Jabs. They all played in Brooklyn last year, putting up OPS's of .571, .587, .457, and .498 respectively. They wish they could have gone to the AFL and hit like him, so I don't have a lot of tears for the folks he's allegedly stealing at-bats from. If they want playing time, they can try and take it from him with their performance, just like every other of the thousands of players in minor league ball. Yeah, offense is higher in the desert, but the Mets clearly needed outfielders in the middle minors when they signed him. They have an ugly paucity of talent there.

Fortunately, he's a couple of years younger than Michael Jordan, so while the time is short to do his catching up, he's got more time than there was for Jordan back then. But I don't think Michael Jordan would have been a particularly hopeless cause had he started out a few years earlier and put more time into it. As bad as a .202 / .289 / .266 // .556 line is, not a lot of folks could just get out of bed and put up those numbers in AA.

[Frayed Knot]

Yeah the problem with Jordan wasn't that he was uniquely untalented at baseball but that, while he was willing to not only ride the buses but even buy the team a luxury version of one, neither he or ChiSox mgmt were going to have him do so below AA despite having no time spent at any other level, and that it certainly seemed like the only way his experiment was going to end was when and if he said so. I can't imagine that Tebow has anything resembling that sort of sway with Alderson et al.



P.S. I also like that this board's indifference to Tebow has resulted in at least three active Tebow threads

[Benjamin Grimm]

The attention that he's getting doesn't bother me at all. He's not really on my radar and won't be until and unless it looks like he might contribute to the big league team.

I hope the Mets resist whatever urges they may have to "Mike Glavine" him, by maybe giving him a token September appearance a couple of years from now. Players shouldn't be in the big leagues unless they earn it. (And hopefully they don't have any such urges at all.)

[Edgy MD]

The Mets needed Mike Glavine, too. I mean, they actually needed somebody better than Glavine, but at the time, they needed a lefthanded stick and he was the best one they had at AAA.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Really? I guess it was a long time ago and I don't remember the details, but I recall Mike's promotion being nothing more than a favor to his brother. I could be wrong.

[Edgy MD]

The real bone they threw to Tom was signing Mike in the first place.

The 2003 Mets were a mess. Utterly lacking a lefthander off the bench, especially after they traded off Burnitz and turned Timo and Jeff Duncan into regulars, they first tried Matt Watson, who gave them nothing, and in the last few weeks were forced to dip down once more, calling on Glavine, who gave them less than nothing, but he only made a handful of plate appearances.

[seawolf17]

I'm bothered that they gave a 29yo with no real experience a "shot," but in all honesty, he hasn't embarrassed himself, and if he can offer something to the organization, then whatever. It sells shirts, I guess. If he hits enough to get a shot, then they'll give him a shot.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Edgy MD wrote: The real bone they threw to Tom was signing Mike in the first place. The 2003 Mets were a mess. Utterly lacking a lefthander off the bench, especially after they traded off Burnitz and turned Timo and Jeff Duncan into regulars, they first tried Matt Watson, who gave them nothing, and in the last few weeks were forced to dip down once more, calling on Glavine, who gave them less than nothing, but he only made a handful of plate appearances.

My memory might be screwed up on this but as I recall it they promoted Mike Glavine at the very same time, or shortly after, they "demoted" Matt Watson to Brooklyn so he could help them with their playoff push. Watson was probably the more accomplished guy of the two and had some experience. As Alderson would say the "optics" were not good.

[Guest d'Kong76]

I thought there was another thread or two but this was the first I found
to stick this in...

Sandy Alderson Threatens Unruly Mets Fans - Deadspin