Tim Tebow: The Most Anticipated Warm Body in Baseball History

<![CDATA[So Tim Tebow is actually going to be playing baseball in a New York Mets uniform on SNY. It's further than I thought he would get in this journey, but he's going to get there.

Tim Tebow is going to start Wednesday's game against the Red Sox at designated hitter. He'll face reigning AL Cy Young Rick Porcello. #Mets

— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) March 6, 2017

When the movie is made about all this, in which Tim Tebow will play himself, I'm sure that the fly ball he hits on Wednesday will be Hollywoodized out of the yard. Far be it from me to put a damper on Gator Nation, but without split squad games on Wednesday and Friday, and double digit players leaving to play in the World Baseball Classic, this doesn't happen. Tim Tebow is just like all of those other players sent to minor league camp who still played in major league games in the middle of March to give some rest to the 40-man roster guys. But all those guys had numbers on the backs of their jerseys but no names. You probably forgot about guys like Tyler Pill, Cody Satterwhite, and Cory Vaughn. But you won't forget about Tim Tebow because nobody will let you. (I guess I won't let you either because I'm writing about him, but of all the Tebow-mania we've seen in the past few weeks, this is actually kinda notable.) In the world of buzz and hype and trending, Tebow is Hollywood waiting to happen. In our world, he's a non-roster seat filler. And not even an Academy Awards seat filler. He's a seat filler for the Teen Choice Awards.

But it’ll be interesting to see if he runs into one. Tebow strikes me as a true outcome guy: home run, strikeout, walk. Since he’ll be the DH on Wednesday, he won’t have to worry about navigating any grass so he can worry about his swing. A guy like this is a dime a dozen these days, but he is also dangerous in any given at-bat. Which for me lends the question: What must Cy Young award winner Rick Porcello be thinking? It’s his second spring start, and I’m sure he still wants to work on things, and he will for every other batter. But surely he’s heard that he will be facing a living, breathing hashtag. So what does he do? Continue to spot the ball and throw his pitches in succession, or does he make sure that he’s not on every single highlight reel from here to April of 2035 and throw two 99ers and buckle him with the nastiest slider known to mankind to sit him down? Will it matter what Porcello does? Probably not, but Bartolo Colon has a major league home run so you never know. (And I still don’t think that James Shields has recovered from that.) If anyone else on the Red Sox staff were to give up a dinger to the former Jets slot receiver (okay, for one play), who cares. If a Cy Young award winner gives up a home run to Tebow, that Cy Young award winner will never hear the end of it. Not from the Red Sox, not from Kate Upton, not from his pals at Seton Hall prep. So don’t be surprised if that radar gun and that spin rate is upped a little bit from Porcello on Wednesday.

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Steven Matz made his spring debut and threw two scoreless innings in an 8-2 Mets victory over Miami. L.J. Mazzilli, (or Mazelli, because who has any reference as to how to spell Mazzilli anyway), hit a home run and scored on a bases loaded walk by Gene Cone. Cone was then traded after the game for Brian Thompson and Jerry Kent. (Only old people will get that joke, and they’re the same ones that know how to spell “Mazzilli”.)]]>