When Tim Tebow signed a minor league deal with the New York Mets, he had not played competitive baseball in a little more than a decade. It should not be surprising at all how he struggled in his first season. In 126 games between Columbia and St. Lucie, he hit just .226/.309/.347. On the one hand it was commendable, and yet on the other, Tebow looked like a player who had not played since high school.
That would be former Major Leauger Jay Gibbons assessment as well. In fact, as he told Tim Britton of The Athletic, “The first time I saw [his swing], it was concerning. He looked like a guy that was a high-school player — just an athlete trying to muscle everything.”
In his article, Britton would detail how Tebow and Gibbons met and began working together since the end of that ugly 2017 season. It’s not just the fact Tebow has used Gibbons as hit hitting coach, it is the lengths in which he has undergone to invest in becoming an improved baseball player. Gibbons would fly out to meet Tebow at the Sugar Bowl, a game Tebow was covering for ESPN as an analyst. Ultimately, Gibbons and Tebow worked approximately 10-12 days each month over the winter.
What makes Tebow coachable is not just his work ethic but his natural talent. Gibbons described Tebow having natural, unteachable hand speed as well as athletic ability. With that as Tebow’s base, Gibbons said he had hope because he saw a hitter who had “the ability to get to balls that he shouldn’t be able to get to with a swing that wasn’t right.”
Gibbons began the process about halfway through the year last year by working 0n Tebow’s base with the goal of letting Tebow utilize his athletic ability to hit the ball. For Gibbons that was the key to Tebow improving saying, “You see how big he is, so allow him to use his legs instead of being in the air and out in front. Once we got his base better, everything started syncing up with his upper body.”
In 2018, there was a significant improvement with Tebow at the plate. In addition to being named an Eastern League All-Star, he would be an above league average hitter (106 wRC+) while improving his batting average, OBP, and slugging percentage from the previous year. This was all the more impressive when you consider Tebow was making these improvements and adjustments against more advanced pitchers.
One thing which really stood out with Tebow was his July. Before suffering a season ending hamate bone injury which required season ending surgery, Tebow was in the midst of his best stretch as a baseball player. In 15 games, he was hitting .340/.364/.434. With numbers like those, you could foresee Tebow potentially fighting his way to the Major Leagues.
While there are still naysayers and plenty of obstacles still ahead of him, Gibbons offered this in response, “For him to do what he’s done already, to me, is an amazing thing. I’m not the guy that’s going to doubt Tim Tebow, with his heart and his drive. I would never doubt that guy.”
