Tebow promoted to high Class A St. Lucie by Mets
http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/tebow-promoted-to-high-class-a-st-lucie-by-mets/ar-BBDbegw?OCID=ansmsnnews11
Any
other player hitting .222 wouldn't have had a chance at even that kind of promotion, with
or without Tim Tebow's work ethic, and he
has an excellent such ethic. Tebow's a little different,
though---he's a guy who hadn't played any kind of baseball in over a decade, so him hitting .222
in the low minors is better than you'd expect. Does it mean he has a real pro baseball future? The jury's
still out.
Some of the move had economic motives: with Tebow, the smallest crowd at any of his games in
the South Atlantic League was about 2,645 people, and the Florida State League in which St. Lucie
plays is averaging 1,404 per game, so he'll have an economic impact going in that magnifies
when you throw in that---unlike with the Columbia Fireflies---the Mets own their St. Lucie affiliate
and they get a more direct bump than the Fireflies did.
A guy with a .651 OPS in the low-A SAL isn't exactly a long-term prospect no matter
how hard
he works at the game, and Tebow is one of the hardest workers in the business. Then why make the
move, especially with tantalising hints that Tebow might even get a September call-up to the Mets
no matter how he does at St. Lucie---in a league level where the game is considerably more tough
than in the SAL?
Easy enough, and slightly disgraceful if you think deeply about it: Tebow is the Mets' Michael
Jordan---and the White Sox when Jordan tried and failed playing pro baseball in their organisation
didn't have even half the problems this year's Mets have---a feel-good story some in the Mets'
administration might hope, cynically enough, would distract from the major issues dogging
the Mets:
* Matt Harvey's apparent off-field breakdown and the troublesome antics it provoked.
* The mishandling of Noah Syndergaard's MRI folderol, which turned into a near three-month
trip to the disabled list when he got murdered by the Nationals and left that game with the lat
tear the MRI he tried to
shenk might have turned up before he was sent out to take
that beating pitching at less than full strength.
* A team that was supposed to go to this year's postseason coming apart little by little
under injuries, aging, and attitude issues.
* Asdrubal Cabrera publicly denouncing the move to second base the day he came off the
DL and almost no one in the Mets' administration taking him to real task for it. (Once upon a
time, when Ted Simmons rejected a move to third base, his then-manager Whitey Herzog
---who suffered neither fools nor non-team players gladly---wasted no time moving him
out of town and elsewhere no matter how long Simmons had been in the Show, and
Simmons was about a twelve-year veteran at the time. Talk now is that the Mets are looking
to move a few veterans including Cabrera, but not pouncing when he pronounced himself
shall we say displeased over moving to second base weakens them administratively.)
* A bullpen not quite as notorious as those of the Nationals and the Giants but with
troubles enough beginning with how overworked they were in the first two months
of the season.
* Stubbornly refusing to call up Show-ready shortstop prospect Amed Rosario from
AAA Las Vegas and relying on their aging infield corps that produces less and less
overall.
