Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter and outfielder Adam Jones are among those who’ve made comments or social media posts either poking fun at or disparaging his attempts to play baseball after an 11-year absence from the sport.
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“He tried. He tried. For me, yeah, I’ll make all the sacrifices to be the best I can”. He is insane strong and could run well in one direction, but that’s it. He threw him a few fastballs at about 80 percent, and when Tebow squared one up, Rowland-Smith, a left-hander, broke off a curve.
Well, according to most Major League Baseball scouts, not too much.
“If I’m a team, I’m signing him”, Moeller said.
“That’s a big dude, for as fast as he can run”. He has great opposite-field power, and I thought the live at-bats went well. “I think it was the right decision for us”. Aardsma had previously pitched to Tebow in a private workout last week.
First up was the 60-yard dash, with Tebow sprinting from one set of cones in the outfield to the other.
If that exercise displayed his virtues, the live batting practice session that followed exposed how far he is from playing in the major leagues.
Tim Tebow crushed a batting-practice fastball with a confident left-handed swing, sending it into the trees next to the scoreboard beyond right field. Some scouts rated his raw power at the top tier among professional players.
Twenty-eight teams were said to have had representatives at this event, totaling more than 45 scouts. And every ball he hit it wasn’t because he was trying to put it there – it was as quick as he could get around. “And on the first two balls they hit out to him in center field he rushed in like two strides and then had to recover and sprint just to catch a routine pop fly”. His speed was ruled above average by most, considering his size. “The pursuit of it is to give it all you can, be the best you can, be someone to pursue what I feel passionate about”. “A lot of people are like, “What if you fail?” Just pursue what you love, right? If that’s the worst thing that can happen, that’s OK.
Many have mocked Tim Tebow for trying to pursue a baseball career after his National Football League playing days petered out. The Broncos traded him to the New York Jets the following offseason after Denver agreed to a deal with Peyton Manning.
“Better than I expected, to be honest”, said one major league scout who spoke to USA TODAY Sports on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about his assessment. I wanted to get my work in, so I threw a breaking ball.
You can see the entire interview below.
Now, he and his agent await firm offers from interested clubs.
The overall consensus was that Tebow did exceed expectations. The development plan might include a stint in the Arizona Fall League or in winter ball, possibly in Latin America.
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“The goal would be to have a career in the big leagues”, he said.
