It’s the question that has been asked each of the past three offseasons, and the answer remains the same: Tim Tebow will be returning to the Mets organization next year. The 2020 campaign will be the former quarterback’s fourth, and most important, in the system.
Tebow reached Triple-A for the first time in 2019, playing in 77 games for the Syracuse Mets before suffering a finger laceration in late July that ended his season.
It was his second consecutive season-ending injury; in 2018, Tebow broke the hamate bone in his right hand while swinging a bat.
Injuries aside, Tebow’s foray into professional baseball has been marked by offensive struggles. With over 1,000 plate appearances under his belt, the left-handed hitting corner outfielder is sporting a .638 OPS, which puts him in the 8th percentile among minor leaguers who have met the same threshold since 2016.
After an uninspiring debut season spent at two Class-A levels, things looked to have turned a corner in 2018, when he hit .273 with six home runs for Double-A Binghamton.
The hamate injury prematurely ended his best season to date and, according to the Mets, affected his offseason.
Whether the injury lingered into the 2019 season, we’ll never know. Still, Tebow never got into an offensive rhythm with Syracuse, recording just four multi-hit games and ultimately OPS’ing .495 across 264 plate appearances.
And now, for the first time, Tebow will have to repeat a rung on the organizational ladder. Typically, that isn’t an encouraging sign for a minor leaguer.
It may have been an amusing sideshow at first, but Tebow’s consistent presence has proved, three years later, that he is a devoted member of the organization. He’s been given a longer leash than most, and with opportunity comes a duty to perform.
With time, however, comes the reality of the major league rules. They state that Tebow will be eligible for selection in the Rule 5 Draft next December.
Would a team – one projected to be far from the top of the standings in 2021 – shrug its shoulders and select him? The simple answer is, “why not?” Such a team could even bring him (and his media circus and fanatical following) in just for spring training before sending him to the waiver wire wolves.
Would the Mets add him to their 40-man roster and protect him from getting picked in the first place? That question is more complex.
It’s impossible to tell where the Mets will be a year from now, but it doesn’t seem like the team will be turning off “win now” mode anytime soon.
40-man roster spots on a contending team are precious, so it would be hard to envision the Mets spending one on a then-33-year-old with no major league experience and a poor minor league track record.
Additionally, with expanded rosters in September going the way of the four-pitch intentional walk, it’s hard to envision Tebow commanding a call-up to the major leagues in 2020 and securing a roster spot before the offseason.
This, of course, is assuming a couple of things.
For starters, it’s assuming Tebow is in the same place mentally that he is now. He may decide at some point soon that the professional baseball life isn’t for him, and at 32 and recently engaged, it wouldn’t be a shock if that ended up being the case.
It’s also assuming that his baseball skills haven’t progressed to the point where they warrant at least a realistic consideration for a major league roster spot. Tebow deserves credit for his dedication to the sport and willingness to improve, but his struggles at the plate and in the field may just always be too great to overcome.
By the time this conversation becomes more real (August if the Mets seem to be out of playoff contention, or after the season if they really pull something off) the tone of the narrative may have switched. But until then, the onus is on Tim Tebow to prove that he is playing for something greater than a mediocre minor league career.