Philadelphia Eagles

Mets: Tim Tebow likely headed to minor league camp this spring

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

foxsports

Even if he’s assigned to Minor League camp, we’ll likely see Tim Tebow in the Grapefruit League with the Mets at some point.

Mets OF Tim Tebow, who played in the instructional league and the Arizona Fall League this past September and October, respectively, will most likely be assigned to Minor League camp come February in Port St. Lucie, according to Sandy Alderson. The Mets GM spoke with reporters at the winter meetings on Tuesday, and talked about the former college football star.

According to Adam Rubin of ESPN, Sandy had this to say regarding Tebow:

“He was in the Arizona Fall League, but that’s the only organized league he’s ever participated in beyond high school…And we understand he’s a little bit older, so that the process needs to accelerate at some point. But we still need to be prudent about it and put him in situations where he can succeed and not be viewed as, I was going to say, a circus animal. But that’s probably not appropriate.”

Alderson indicated there’s no compelling reason to have Tebow assigned to major league camp “except for advertising purposes.”

“We knew he’d be overmatched in the Arizona Fall League. We also felt that he needed to play games…And so, as we look at going into spring training and his first full season, I think the same priorities would hold true — he needs to play games. Under most circumstances that would mean, look, he’s in minor league camp. He’s playing games every day. He comes over once in a while. And, at the end of camp, he goes to a full-season team. I think that’s what we would foresee. Now, things could change based on how he performs or what have you.”

Terry Collins also added:

“We’re in New York. We can handle anybody with a name on his back in our camp…If they decide to send him to camp, we’ll get him better. I can tell you, I certainly hope you will see Tim Tebow in some of our games. … I think he’s a name in Florida. He’s a star in Florida. He should be. I think it would be fun to have Tim come over. And certainly one thing about our players, they’re athletes. They’re fans, too. They would probably like to know how to run a quarterback sneak one day.”

The biggest thing everyone will be concerned about is the idea this is a “distraction,” and that would be my concern as well. But I am going to take a wait-and-see approach to it. According to both Sandy and Terry, the clubhouse would welcome the chance to talk and interact with the former Heisman winner.

At times during the early part of Spring Training, highly touted, low-level prospects make their way from Minor League camp to the big club’s camp to get some reps against pitching substantially above their current level. While Tim Tebow is not that kind of prospect, there is no reason to deny him the opportunity to see where he is and how far he needs to go in 2017.

I’ve never been a fan of the whole Tebow thing, but the guy knows how to keep his name in the culture and is certainly athletic enough. He deserves a chance to see how far he can take it in baseball.