Keith Law Laid Waste to Tim Tebow as Prospect: "A Farce"

Keith Law was in Arizona to provide an evaluation of Tim Tebow as a baseball prospect.

If we were to sum it up in one word, it would be “No.” Two words? Perhaps “Hell, no.” But Law wrote an entire article that emanated heat from having to evaluate a player he did not feel worthy of the spot in Arizona.

Some of the gems from his article (Insider required to read entire piece):

"“His presence here is a farce, and he looks like an imposter pretending to have talent he does not possess.” “His swing is long, and he wields the bat like someone who hasn’t played the sport in more than a decade, which he hasn’t.” “In left field, his routes look like those of a wide receiver, although he managed to eventually make his way around to a fly ball in left.” “The Mets’ decision to sign Tebow for $100,000 … was a craven, mercenary move befitting an independent-league team desperate for the added revenue from ticket sales, not something a major league team with postseason aspirations should be doing.” “The Mets had to use one of their AFL roster slots to send Tebow here, and he’s playing 3-4 days a week — because this is a part-time job for him — in place of, well, players who can actually play.” “This is all in service of adding jersey sales, but if MLB and the Mets were being honest about this, the front of Tebow’s jersey would say “Avarice” in Comic Sans.”"

So we’ll just go ahead and put Law down as a “No” on Tebow. That’s not surprising–it would be shocking if someone who took a decade off the sport could come in against higher level prospect and compete–but there are some added layers to this.

The first additional element of intrigue is that this isn’t just any player. It’s one who is also employed at ESPN–Law even references him treating this as a part-time job–the same company for which Law is writing. Of course, it’s a really large company, and it’s doubtful these two have had occasion to cross paths on a professional basis. It would also be more of a problem if Law couldn’t provide his opinion on someone who ventured into the baseball sphere, ESPN talent or not.

Second, of course, will be the response from the Tebow fans. Law got a Twitter suspension two years ago for jumping into a conversation with fellow employee Curt Schilling, debating evolution. That, of course, was before Schilling went on several other rants on politics that ultimately got him pushed out at the network. There is certainly a cross-over element with Tebow fans that goes beyond just “sticking to sports” and what is actually done between the lines, or in this case, in the batter’s box. (Tebow’s spray chart, for example, doesn’t exactly dissuade a view that he is a non-prospect who rolls over on pitches he shouldn’t). Those fans will likely not react favorably to Keith Law being the one to bring the hammer down.