Two MLB teams didn’t even bother to scout Tim Tebow’s showcase
Tim Tebow’s baseball showcase was about what you’d expect: He was impressive in some moments and he showed 10 years’ worth of rust in others. If you were looking for reasons to say he’ll never be a big-league baseball player, you found those. If you were looking for reasons to say he has potential, you found those too.
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Twenty-eight of the 30 big-league teams were there to at least see what Tebow had to offer. Some, like the Boston Red Sox, left and quickly announced they’d likely be passing. GM Dave Dombrowski told NESN on Tuesday night: “I don’t think we’ll be rushing out to make a signing.”
You know who else probably isn’t rushing to sign Tebow? The two teams that didn’t even show up to scout him. And now, thanks to Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, we know who they are: the Chicago Cubs and the Oakland Athletics.
Correction: #Mariners did check in on Tebow. #Cubs and #Athletics only teams not to attend.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 30, 2016
So it sounds like Tebow — even before the workout and 430-foot batting practice homer — was deemed neither a curse breaker nor a market inefficiency.
Why didn’t the Cubs go? Well, according to Patrick Mooney of CSN Chicago:
The Cubs skipped Tebow’s workout on the University of Southern California campus, sources said, viewing it as a promotional stunt for the former NFL quarterback and 2007 Heisman Trophy winner.
There’s nothing requiring teams to spend their resources at a glorified tryout by an ex-football player who hasn’t played baseball since high school. Getting 28 teams there is actually pretty good.
One of them probably will give Tebow a minor-league contract when all is said and done, maybe even a spring training invite for next year. Because the Tebow Experiment is nothing if not intriguing and one team will be bold enough to give him a chance (and take whatever merchandise sales come with it, even if it flops).
It just probably won’t be the Cubs or the A’s.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz