Scout compares Tebow's baseball skills to Bugs Bunny's
Tim Tebow's baseball career hasn't gotten off to the best of starts.
The former NFL quarterback and NCAA star was signed to a minor-league contract by the New York Mets in September, and the results since then - save for his home run on the first pitch he faced in instructional league - haven't been pretty. Tebow's now playing for the Scottsdale Scorpions of the Arizona Fall League, where he's gone 0-for-9 with two strikeouts in nine at-bats. He has drawn three walks - including one with the bases loaded - and that's pushed his on-base percentage to .182.
His fielding skills have also left much to be desired. In his first AFL game, the 29-year-old misread a fly ball and ended up crashing into the wall, eliciting a not-so-kind comparison from an anonymous National League scout.
"He ran into it like Bugs Bunny would have," the scout told Kristie Ackert of the New York Daily News. "I haven't seen that before."
Bugs Bunny, it should be noted, once played all nine positions at the same time in the 1946 Warner Bros. short "Baseball Bugs."
Beloved animated characters aside, Tebow's AFL performance seems to have scouts around baseball - who descended upon Arizona to watch some of the game's best prospects - shaking their heads in dismay.
"Plus raw power, but too much length to swing. Poor pitch recognition. Must shorten swing or he won't hit anything above 90 (miles per hour)," an unnamed American League scout said. "He's (a) below average outfielder. He runs bad routes, has slow jumps and well below average arm strength."
Related - Mets GM: Tebow signing 'was strictly driven by baseball'
The general belief among scouts watching the AFL is that while the Mets will make money selling Tebow's No. 15 jersey, the team should have known his lack of skills would become evident once he left the easy-going environment of the instructional leagues.
"It's what they (the Mets) signed up for. Nobody is surprised by this, are they?" another scout told Ackert after watching Tebow play. "Come on, it's been, um, interesting."