Tebow

RJM posted:

Teaching Elder posted:

Is there some rule saying that 30 year olds must be on a AAA roster?

It's kind of an unwritten rule of development once 27 and in AA it's, " See ya, enjoy the rest of your life."

I know the Seadogs (Red Sox AA) have a 27 year old. But they had huge holes in their roster, a second consecutive last place season and decreasing crowds. Tavares hit .335. He was needed. He was actually sent down from AAA when there wasn't room for him.. He's a career AAAA player at best.

AAAA - A lifer AAA player who goes up and down from AAA with occasional two week roster filler stints in MLB when someone hits the DL. He gets released every couple of years. But he always finds a new AAA home until he's in his 30's. Then they go home or become MiLB coaches.

I was not aware of these unwritten rules.   I was aware that 26 years old is supposed to be prime age for athletic ability and mental ability to meet.  I was also aware that clubs sign people to help the big team, not be lifer AA players.

So if 26 is the prime of an athlete's career if the player can't get by AA ball by the time he's 27 he's not much of a prospect. If a player can't get moved up to AAA he gets caught from behind by younger prospects. The average AA player is 24.5 years old. The average age in AAA is 27. AAA includes ex MLBers in their 30's hoping for one more shot.

I will stipulate that tebow is older than 24.5.

The Red Sox signed Rusney Castillo for 72M at 26. At 28 they consider him a failure becauses he's at AAA. They're trying to unload him now. Of course no one wants his contact. This isn't a game to start late. Those who do must move quickly to the majors.

http://www.thebaseballcube.com...sp?P=rusney-castillo

Ron LeFlore was signed at 25. He went from A ball to the majors in one year.

http://www.thebaseballcube.com...le.asp?P=ron-leflore

Last night watching the Red Sox game Dave O'Brien (announcer) said Yoan Mocada expected to go straight to the majors when he was signed like many other Cuban players. He said since he's learned you have to pay your dues, prove yourself and it's hard. Thus is coming from one of the top prospects in baseball. Not some guy who's been away from the game for ten years.

TE, you need to familiarize yourself on how the system works.  The average time that it takes to develop a player is 4 years, HS players 5, thus the reason for protecting players after 4 years if they haven't already made the ML roster.  College drafted players have to hustle, their window of opportunity  is a smaller window.  Some players go straight to MLB  from AA, but that unusual in most cases.  Then there are the phenomenons tha we hear about but Tim Tebow is not a phenom.  He is an older guy who may  be in better physical shape but that doesn't mean he can be successful and yeah chances it may appear he is better, but realistically he would be a man, playing at 30 against players who are still kids.

Pretty sad if this is the way MLB has to sell tickets these days.

Yeah, I've looked over that stuff a couple of times, but since we've never HAD to deal with all of that I forget all of the byzantine rules involved.   I would imagine, though, that TT would not have any of those rules pressing against him at this time, since he has not started his playing clock yet.

FWIW, all sports need to sell tickets/merch/TV commercial time, and they use gimmicks and sometimes outright corruption.  

NBA uses corruption in officiating in order to favor teams and players to keep the game more interesting. (The Cavs may well have won in James' final year due to a rigged system.)  And they are no strangers to gimmicks, e.g. Spud Webb.

 MLB tries to promote home runs to sell tickets and make the game interesting.  Even if it means largely turning a blind eye to steroid use.

Football works it's rules to promote offense over defense.  

Hockey allows people to get in fist-fights on the job, for goodness sakes!  Why, it sells tickets and generates interest.

 Don't even get me started on "Throwback Uniforms."

Teaching Elder posted

 Don't even get me started on "Throwback Uniforms."

Trust me I wont.

Spud Webb was talented. The only hype was the dunk contest. He won because he was 5'7" (in the program anyway) and could dunk. Mugsey Bogues was 5'3" and could dunk.

I've heard from a sportwriter who used to cover the Hornets that Bogues could dunk a volleyball. He had the vertical, but his hands were too small to dunk a basketball one handed.

Not to change the subject, but Lebron James in the last three games averaged something like 35 points, 10 assists, 12 rebounds, 3 blocks, 3 steals. Two of the three games were at Golden State. Kylie Irving hit the big shot in the final game after James made a block that will be replayed a million times in basketball history.  The NBA didn't do any of the above.

Golden State could have played better, Dramon Green had the greatest game of his career in the final game.  Unfortunately he is a loose cannon. Curry looked intimidated.  I know his wife went on social media saying it was rigged, but the NBA office didn't cause Lebron's numbers or Kyrie's shot to go in.  Golden State had the greatest regular season ever and a 3-1 lead in the series with two of the last three games at home.

How can anyone blame the NBA for what happened?  That is just sour grapes!  They should blame themselves or better yet they should just say Lebron James and Cleveland accomplished the near impossible.

Does anyone think that the NBA office or anyone else on earth thought Golden State would lose three games in a row with two of them at home?

Seems like you can blame Golden State or give credit to Cleveland, but claiming it was rigged is an excuse that doesn't make sense to anyone except maybe a Warrior fan.

Did Tebow play basketball in high school? Just wondering if this baseball thing doesn't work out...

No, I think he was a bowler. 

I'm no Warriors fan.  I'm not even an NBA fan.  I doubt I've watched an entire NBA game in my life.

I do know, however, that a former referee was sentence to prison because he was able to predict game outcomes based upon who was refereeing particular games!

He also implicated the league for discouraging fouls and especially technical fouls and for allowing certain players outrageous leeway and for encouraging corrupt officiating.  He confirms that the 2002 play offs were rigged.

The NBA has been manipulating things for quitte some time.  They systemically allow guys several extra steps with the ball in order to provide showmanship dunks.   

Ticket/commercial airtime/ merchandise sales drive most all sports. 

There you go!!

Teaching Elder posted:

I'm no Warriors fan.  I'm not even an NBA fan.  I doubt I've watched an entire NBA game in my life.

I do know, however, that a former referee was sentence to prison because he was able to predict game outcomes based upon who was refereeing particular games!

He also implicated the league for discouraging fouls and especially technical fouls and for allowing certain players outrageous leeway and for encouraging corrupt officiating.  He confirms that the 2002 play offs were rigged.

The NBA has been manipulating things for quitte some time.  They systemically allow guys several extra steps with the ball in order to provide showmanship dunks.   

Ticket/commercial airtime/ merchandise sales drive most all sports. 

IOW, "I don't know anything about the NBA, but it's totally rigged." Let me guess, you think casino's setup poker hands for action, in-person voter fraud is a thing, and that "man-on-the-street" reporting is completely representative of the opinions/knowledge of people at large.

Consider, how often do extremely unlikely things happen in a world where countless things happen every second? Also, maybe, a little something on Occam's Razor would be good reading.

Mugsy Bogues to poker to Occam's Razor in a conversation about Tim Tebow.

Well, I'll see your Razor and raise you Copernicus.  

jacjacatk posted:

Teaching Elder posted:

I'm no Warriors fan.  I'm not even an NBA fan.  I doubt I've watched an entire NBA game in my life.

I do know, however, that a former referee was sentence to prison because he was able to predict game outcomes based upon who was refereeing particular games!

He also implicated the league for discouraging fouls and especially technical fouls and for allowing certain players outrageous leeway and for encouraging corrupt officiating.  He confirms that the 2002 play offs were rigged.

The NBA has been manipulating things for quitte some time.  They systemically allow guys several extra steps with the ball in order to provide showmanship dunks.   

Ticket/commercial airtime/ merchandise sales drive most all sports. 

IOW, "I don't know anything about the NBA, but it's totally rigged." Let me guess, you think casino's setup poker hands for action, in-person voter fraud is a thing, and that "man-on-the-street" reporting is completely representative of the opinions/knowledge of people at large.

Consider, how often do extremely unlikely things happen in a world where countless things happen every second? Also, maybe, a little something on Occam's Razor would be good reading.

Not sure if serious.

The NBA isn't rigged. Steph Curry never came back from his injury 100%. His post injury shooting numbers are not good. like most sports leg injuries effect the mechanics all the way up the body. The Warriors still had a chance to close it out at home up 3-1. But Draymon Green acted like an idiot and hurt his team.

If the NBA because if one ref so is rigged so is MLB due to the 1919 White Sox. Let's be real. They're isolated incidents. Tim Donahy rigged some regular season games. No one is paying attention. It would be noticed if a ref tried to rig a finals.

The poster who brought up traveling must not have watched an NBA game in the past five years. The NBA drastically cut down on the three steps to the hoop. Superstars still get preferred calls. But that's true in any sport.

RJM posted:

The NBA isn't rigged. Steph Curry never came back from his injury 100%. His post injury shooting numbers are not good. like most sports leg injuries effect the mechanics all the way up the body. The Warriors still had a chance to close it out at home up 3-1. But Draymon Green acted like an idiot and hurt his team.

If the NBA because if one ref so is rigged so is MLB due to the 1919 White Sox. Let's be real. They're isolated incidents. Tim Donahy rigged some regular season games. No one is paying attention. It would be noticed if a ref tried to rig a finals.

The poster who brought up traveling must not have watched an NBA game in the past five years. The NBA drastically cut down on the three steps to the hoop. Superstars still get preferred calls. But that's true in any sport.

No one is saying that one Ref is rigged.  I am saying that one Ref. gave proof that numerous Refs were rigged.  He has also stated that the NBA was orchestrating it.  

The muscular, 255-pound former Heisman Trophy Award winner impressed with his raw power – he hit one long home run during the workout — and above-average speed, though his swing and defensive skills would presumably need plenty of work if he hoped to advance up the minor league chain and someday realize his goal of playing in the majors.

- Atlanta Constitution, Monday

How long does a 30yo get to revamp his swing and improve his defensive skills? Can he track a ball up the gap or over his head?

Teaching Elder posted:

RJM posted:

The NBA isn't rigged. Steph Curry never came back from his injury 100%. His post injury shooting numbers are not good. like most sports leg injuries effect the mechanics all the way up the body. The Warriors still had a chance to close it out at home up 3-1. But Draymon Green acted like an idiot and hurt his team.

If the NBA because if one ref so is rigged so is MLB due to the 1919 White Sox. Let's be real. They're isolated incidents. Tim Donahy rigged some regular season games. No one is paying attention. It would be noticed if a ref tried to rig a finals.

The poster who brought up traveling must not have watched an NBA game in the past five years. The NBA drastically cut down on the three steps to the hoop. Superstars still get preferred calls. But that's true in any sport.

No one is saying that one Ref is rigged.  I am saying that one Ref. gave proof that numerous Refs were rigged.  He has also stated that the NBA was orchestrating it.  

There was no proof. Also, in response to one of your prior posts, he was not convicted of rigging games.

RJM posted:

The NBA isn't rigged. Steph Curry never came back from his injury 100%. His post injury shooting numbers are not good. like most sports leg injuries effect the mechanics all the way up the body. The Warriors still had a chance to close it out at home up 3-1. But Draymon Green acted like an idiot and hurt his team.

If the NBA because if one ref so is rigged so is MLB due to the 1919 White Sox. Let's be real. They're isolated incidents. Tim Donahy rigged some regular season games. No one is paying attention. It would be noticed if a ref tried to rig a finals.

The poster who brought up traveling must not have watched an NBA game in the past five years. The NBA drastically cut down on the three steps to the hoop. Superstars still get preferred calls. But that's true in any sport.

Is there evidence that MLB stars get better calls? People said that maddux got a bigger Zone and maybe that was true but if we talk just about the pitch fx era, is there evidence for that? is kris bryant more likely to get a ball on the black called a ball than Chris coghlan? is kershaw more likely to get it called a strike than scott feldman?

There was no proof. Also, in response to one of your prior posts, he was not convicted of rigging games.

There was proof.  No, the Ref. in question didn't rig games.  What he did was collude with gamblers to determine who was most likely to win games due to knowing who was going to be refereeing certain match ups.    In truth, he should not have been the one to be convicted.  The referees in question should have been.  He's just the guy who got caught with the underworld guys.     

The fact that this guy could successfully predict games, but wasn't fixing them, is strong evidence of widespread malfeasance in the NBA refereeing ranks.    He also stated that the League was encouraging such behavior.   Did the League say, "You got us"?   Nope.  I've never seen a head of a non-profit, business CEO, politician or judge who didn't deny, deny, deny when they were fingered.   I'm not saying that being fingered and denying automatically makes one guilty.  However, denying doesn't make one not guilty either.    In this case we have enough evidence to make a wise individual think twice about gambling in the NBA.

I got a chance to check out all the footage of Tebow and...

Hitting - He's obviously got tremendous power.  The surprising thing was that he could catch up to a fastball.  His timing needs work, but his swing looks much improved.  

Fielding - He doesn't read the ball very well.  Happy feet is good for football, not in baseball.  As for his arm, he needs to make adjustments on how he throws the ball as all but one of his throws took at least 1 bounce.  He's got good velocity, just needs more spin on the ball.  

It's not like teams don't keep somewhat longer in the tooth players around in the minors long after it's obvious they have no future because they offer guidance for younger players. Think what you will (and I have never been a big fan of Tebow and his public displays of Christianity on the field), Tebow makes a good role model for younger players. Why wouldn't you want to expose your young players to that kind of work effort, moral backbone, and resilience. I can't see any 18-21 year old athletes holding it against him. Heck, I see it as a win-win situation. Braves get a quality individual to help guide a bunch of young kids and Tebow gets to see what he can do.

hsbaseball101 posted:

I got a chance to check out all the footage of Tebow and...

Hitting - He's obviously got tremendous power.  The surprising thing was that he could catch up to a fastball.  His timing needs work, but his swing looks much improved.  

Fielding - He doesn't read the ball very well.  Happy feet is good for football, not in baseball.  As for his arm, he needs to make adjustments on how he throws the ball as all but one of his throws took at least 1 bounce.  He's got good velocity, just needs more spin on the ball.  

I'm amazed at how many younger kids can catch up to high velocity these days. We got a chance to go up against a kid who throws 91-94 this weekend and our mostly 2019 team had little trouble catching up to the velocity. Now, they didn't pound the guy, but they got four solid hits in four innings and didn't strike out excessively.

Mets vs Nationals - neither harper nor granderson made strong or accurate throws to home plate in attempts to get a base runner out at the plate.  Neither was deep. Just an observation.

2forU posted:

Mets vs Nationals - neither harper nor granderson made strong or accurate throws to home plate in attempts to get a base runner out at the plate.  Neither was deep. Just an observation.

Two guys who've proved capable of making good throws (Harper at least has a rep for having a solid arm, I'm not as up on Granderson) are not counter-examples because of a single bad throw.  Having watched Tebow, I'm not convinced he'll ever have anything approaching an average MLB OF arm.

Not that that alone would disqualify him, since plenty of noodle-armed OF have had MLB careers. The vast majority of them could hit MLB breaking balls or had other redeeming offensive qualities, which Tebow is also a long ways from proving he can match.

hsbaseball101 posted:

I got a chance to check out all the footage of Tebow and...

Hitting - He's obviously got tremendous power.  The surprising thing was that he could catch up to a fastball.  His timing needs work, but his swing looks much improved.  

Fielding - He doesn't read the ball very well.  Happy feet is good for football, not in baseball.  As for his arm, he needs to make adjustments on how he throws the ball as all but one of his throws took at least 1 bounce.  He's got good velocity, just needs more spin on the ball.  

Happy feet is a major negative in football. It was one of several criticisms of Tebow. He got nervous in the pocket and took off before going through his reads. The Patriots, with the 31st ranked defense stuffed Tebow twice with a controlled rush, making him stay in the pocket and forcing him to go through his reads. They got sacks when Tebow held on to the ball for six, seven seconds. When he took off quickly he ran right into sacks.

It seems to me that power is the great deodorizer. It is the ultimate Band-Aid, the one thing that if you do, you receive forgiveness for any other shortcomings in your game. If you hit homeruns, you can bat .200-230, and be among the league leaders in strikeouts. Defense is kind of a whatever, since half the teams in the majors have one player who doesn't play defense.

If I am in charge of Tampa' s PR dept. I would give him Tebow a contract to play in the remaining home games. They have been last in attendance for the last 4-5 years.  Could Tebow draw an extra 10-20,000 fans per game?  Base the contract on attendance, Tebow gets a buck a head for every fan in the seat over the average attendance.

If I am in charge of Tampa's ( or any other team) baseball operations I would pass on the opportunity.

if he wanted to play baseball so bad why wasn't he on somebody's summer team. Lots of Indy or mens leagues out there. Show the world how good you are by playing, not by doing one showcase and expecting a contract.

And the Mets pull the trigger. Will be interesting to follow. 

ESPN's Adam Shefter broke the story and says Tebow will play in the Arizona Fall League.

Meet Mr. MeTebow

Stafford posted:

ESPN's Adam Shefter broke the story and says Tebow will play in the Arizona Fall League.

I looked up that tweet because it's so surprising.  It says AZ Fall League or Instructional League.  The Fall League is a high profile league loaded with elite prospects.  I can't see them throwing him into that so soon unless they are really confident of his abilities or figure that it's sink-or-swim time for him right now.

I read elsewhere he's going to the instructional league.....though JCG has a point....maybe just throw him to the sharks and see what happens....at least they'll know and not have to worry about it come spring

OTOH, from the one AZ Fall League game I've attended, it looks like the players, scouts, and girlfriends far outnumber the fans. Maybe they want to sell some tickets.  

Nah.... the teams are made up of players from different teams.  That doesn't make sense.

The Mers just stoled the headlines from the Yankees today and when fall instructional play starts. That's all I see.

You would think with Tebow's current level of ability and playing beat the clock with his age he would be committed to becoming the best baseball player he can be as fast as possible?

 No! He needs time off for his real job. His signing is nothing but a publicity stunt. He's an ego driven athlete who misses the spotlight.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/...0908-snap-story.html