A MAJOR MIRACLE
LAKEWOOD, N.J. − The Lakewood BlueClaws’ FirstEnergy Park sits 85 miles from Citi Field, and for the foreseeable future, this is as close as Mets farmhand Tim Tebow will get to Queens.
Tebow’s highly anticipated New Jersey appearance ended with the former football star mired in an ugly slump. And while he may be selling out South Atlantic League ballparks like he did here this week, Tebow hasn’t given his many fans anything to see.
The last four days, Tebow went a combined 0-for-10 with five strikeouts. He’s batting .227, which begs the question: If he can’t hit low-level A-ball pitching, what could he possibly do against stiffer competition?
Last week, published reports indicated Tebow, 29, might be in line for a call-up this summer, but it’s clear after watching him scuffle in Single-A against kids, some 10 years younger than him, that Tebow is not ready for a promotion.
“We don’t talk about it,” Columbia manager Jose Leger said of the Tebow speculation. “It’s just rumors and they’re always going to be there. We’ll be ready whenever that happens.”
What does a player primed for a promotion actually look like?
Some baseball people believe it takes 1,500 minor league at-bats to prepare for a major-league promotion. Tebow has just over 100 under his belt and isn’t even halfway through his first pro season.
Mike Piazza needed parts of four years in the minors to morph from a 20-year-old kid batting .268 with eight HR in Single-A into the 23-year-old masher who was promoted to the Dodgers from Triple-A. In his last year in the minors, Piazza earned his baseball master’s, batting .350 with 23 homers.
When Gregg Jefferies was called up as a 19-year-old in 1987, he was hitting .367 in the minors. Derek Jeter was hitting .317 when he was promoted. Aaron Judge is having a monster season with the Yankees, but he didn’t get called up until he was hitting .270 with 65 RBI last year with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
“At this level, you look at guys getting better,” Leger said. “Guys at this level have to learn about failure. That’s what you see at this level. You see guys going real good for two weeks and then everything evens out the next two weeks because they just lost their timing or lost their confidence.”
Tebow knows all about failure on the football field, but now he’s learning about left field. “The biggest challenge was going to play the outfield correctly, but he’s doing it,” Leger said. “He’s improving and since spring training he’s gotten better. His arm has gotten stronger, he’s reading balls better off the bat. He’s hard-working and leads by example.
“His bat is coming around,” he said. “You can see there’s a lot of up and downs but you can see that in a lot of guys, who after 6, 7 years, they’re still figuring out their swings.”
Tebow will be closer to 40 in that time, so waiting for him to make a natural progression through the minors might not be realistic even for his most devout supporters.
Imagine, a 36-yearold MLB