Six-Time All-Star Ryan Braun Won't Count Out a Tebow MLB Appearance in 2020: 'He's an All-Time Competitor'
Milwaukee Brewers superstar outfielder Ryan Braun knows a thing or two about succeeding in the big leagues.
While the 36-year-old might not be the hitter he once was, he’s still a six-time National League All-Star who won MVP honors in 2011, when he hit .332 with 33 home runs, 111 RBIs and 33 stolen bases.
Even last year, in his age-35 season, he managed to hit a solid .285 with 22 dingers and 75 RBIs.
So when Braun says he wouldn’t rule out Tim Tebow — the Heisman Trophy winner-turned-NFL-star-turned Mets prospect — appearing in the big leagues in 2020, it means something.
On Thursday, the Mets announced their non-roster spring training invitees, and Tebow was on the list, joining a number of mid- to-high-level prospects.
Mets spring non-roster invitees:
LHP David Peterson, Kevin Smith
RHP Matt Blackham, Ryley Gilliam, Stephen Nogosek, Pedro Payano, Francisco Rios, Adonis Uceta
C Austin Bossart, Patrick Mazeika, David Rodriguez
OF Tim Tebow, Ryan Cordell, Johneshwy Fargas
INF Jake Hager
— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) January 9, 2020
It was the fourth straight year that Tebow, a former Florida Gators football star who currently works as an analyst for the SEC Network during the baseball offseason, made the spring training roster.
During a charity softball event Sunday in Malibu, California, Braun was asked by TMZ if he had any advice for Tebow to “make it stick this time so he can actually make the roster.”
“The guy’s a great athlete, he’s an incredible competitor,” Braun replied. “I think the message is just to stick with it.”
“He’s one of the greatest athletes on the planet, but to be good at baseball, you have to do it over a long period of time, and I think the more reps he has the better he’ll continue to get,” he added.
Braun reiterated the difficulty of making it to MLB.
“If you look at the numbers of guys who make it to the minor leagues, it’s so difficult to ever get to the major leagues,” Braun said.
But if anyone is up to the task, he indicated, it’s Tebow.
“I would never count that guy out,” he said. “He’s proven that he’s the type of dude that can make it in anything he aspires to be great at.”
Tebow is an “all-time competitor,” Braun said, meaning it’s impossible to say he’ll never make it in baseball.
“Being at big league camp, being that he’s a tremendous athlete — he’s an all-time competitor — I certainly wouldn’t count him out,” Braun said.
Now, it is true that Tebow, 32, is far from a traditional top prospect. (When SNY compiled its list of top 20 Mets prospects for the 2020 season, Tebow didn’t make it.)
And it’s true that he did not play well in 2019, hitting just .163 with four home runs and 19 RBIs while appearing in 77 games for the Triple-A-level Syracuse Mets.
But it’s also true that Tebow didn’t play after late July due to a cut he suffered on his hand.
And while he struggled for much of the season prior to sustaining that injury, he had been heating up at the plate in July, at one point blasting three home runs in a span of six games.
.@TimTebow slugs his 3rd HR in 6 games!@SyracuseMets @Mets
?️: https://t.co/FbFatI0zTR pic.twitter.com/rBPrpJllbx— Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) July 6, 2019
It was also Tebow’s first season at the Triple-A level, so it was understandable that there would be a learning curve.
But in 2018, playing for the Double-A Binghamton Rumble Ponies, Tebow hit a solid .273 and was named an Eastern League All-Star.
All this to say that while Tebow might not be one of the Mets’ top prospects, he’s certainly done enough to be given the chance to succeed, which is exactly what the Mets are doing by inviting him to spring training.
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