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from: "Floyd, Brian" important.editor@sbnation.com
to: "Brisbee, Grant"
date: Thurs, Sep 8, 2016 at 7:59 AM
subject: Tim Tebow signs with mets
hey, champ, just saw the news that tim tebow signed with the mets. not sure what you’re working on, but we would LOVE some strong opinions on this. would get tons of clickthroughs and traffic. we know facebook and twitter would eat it up, and it’d probably do some good stuff on snapchat, instagram, and crimstl. let me know if you want to workshop some ideas.
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from: "Brisbee, Grant"
to:"Floyd, Brian"
date: Thurs, Sep 8, 2016 at 8:11 AM
subject: RE: Tim Tebow signs with mets
Hey, thanks for the idea, but I was working on a 3,000-word piece about how I’ve had trouble telling Daniel Murphy and David Murphy apart for years, and how that’s going away now that Daniel Murphy is an MVP candidate. It’s more nostalgic and wistful, really. There’s a digression about Donnie Murphy in there, with a little Dale Murphy sidebar. Also, I talk about the first time my parents took me to a baseball game. Think it will do okay.
Thanks,
Grant
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from: "Floyd, Brian"
to: "Brisbee, Grant"
date: Thurs, Sep 8, 2016 at 8:12 AM
subject: RE: Tim Tebow signs with mets
uh, how about this. how about you don’t do that one, and you instead do something about tim tebow playing baseball. doesn’t have to be long. sounds like the murphy thing is evergreen, anyway.
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from: "Brisbee, Grant"
to:"Floyd, Brian"
date: Thurs, Sep 8, 2016 at 8:15 AM
subject: RE: Tim Tebow signs with mets
OK, whatever. Give me an hour or something, I’ll see what shakes loose.
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from: "Brisbee, Grant"
to:"Floyd, Brian"
subject: RE: Tim Tebow signs with mets
Here you go. See if this is what you had in mind.
Tim Tebow is an ex-football player who signed with the New York Mets to play baseball. After working out for several teams, he showed impressive raw power, which isn’t the easiest baseball-related skill to find. As such, the Mets decided to give up some pocket change to see if he could be good enough to be one of the 330 baseball players employed in their minor league organization.
Considering Tebow was athletic enough to play in the NFL and win a Heisman Trophy, it’s not the weirdest gamble. He’s much older than the typical prospect, and he missed out on a decade of baseball, and those are important points. The signing probably won’t work, but you can say that for about 290 of those 330 baseball players currently in the organization, too.
-30-
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from: "Floyd, Brian"
to: "Brisbee, Grant"
date: Thurs, Sep 8, 2016 at 9:22 AM
subject: RE: Tim Tebow signs with mets
okay, that’s not a bad start. but you can probably flesh it out. with about 1,000 more words or so. i know you think you’re too cool to have an opinion on this, but people actually care about this.
it’s almost like we pay you to write about the baseball things people care about.
try harder.
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from: "Brisbee, Grant"
to:"Floyd, Brian"
date: Thurs, Sep 8, 2016 at 9:25 AM
subject: RE: Tim Tebow signs with mets
No, no, you’re right, you’re right. Sorry. It’s just that I don’t really see the big deal. Baseball is filled with long shots and weird stories. Five years ago, if you told me Tim Tebow was quitting football to play baseball and that a 38-year-old Bartolo Colon was making a comeback, I would have given them roughly even odds of success, just based on athleticism and injury history. Those odds would have been just over zero, but still.
Alright, just add these passages to the first one I sent over.
Just think about the draft. Every June, there are about 1,200 baseball players picked in the draft. All 30 teams sit down for 40 rounds, and they’re rattling off names of high school kids and college kids. One after the other. Almost none of them will get a cup of coffee in the majors. Hardly any of them will make Triple-A. Here’s a random late round of the 2002 draft that I pulled, in which no one made the majors. That’s the rule, not the exception.
Why were those kids drafted, though? Because they were neighbor kids who fed the GMs dog when the GM traveled? No, it’s because they showed a glimmer of a baseball skill. Just a hint of something. Some of them did well enough to thrive at a high level. Some of them didn’t do well at all, but they were tall, skinny kids who could throw 86, which means there’s a chance in five years that they can be tall, filled out, and throwing 96.
Some of them were strong kids who didn’t even play baseball in high school, but the team felt, well, maybe they don’t want to get concussions, and they’re certainly strong enough to swing a bat hard.
There are Tebow-like decisions made every June. Nobody cares. This is different because a) he’s Tim Tebow, b) he’s pushing 30, and b) he’s Tim Tebow. That doesn’t mean the rationale is different. Every June, teams slap velcro on 40 players, throw them to the wall, and see if they stick. Some of those players don’t even make it out of instructional league. It’s clear after a month that they lack the requisite skills, and they’re quietly released.
The only difference here is that if Tebow succeeds, on the 0.001-percent chance that the Mets hit a jackpot and get even a fifth outfielder, it will be a huge story. It will dominate the news cycle.
They’ll sell tickets. They’ll sell merchandise. Again, the odds are ridiculously low that this will happen, but if you think about Tebow as a 38th-round pick with one tool, but who was paid like a 19th-round pick because he has the potential to be a PR bonanza, this is an incredibly banal, dog-bites-man move.
So treat it as such until he succeeds and moves up a level. And another level. And another level. At which point, you can start evaluating the move differently.
But you don’t have to worry about that any time soon.
-30-
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from: "Floyd, Brian"
to: "Brisbee, Grant"
date: Thurs, Sep 8, 2016 at 9:32 AM
subject: RE: Tim Tebow signs with mets
hey, that’s much better. it’s not much of a strong opinion, though. people want to laugh at this. they want to lolmets until they can’t breathe. they want to root for tebow to fail for some reason because they have nothing else to look forward to in their dingy, sordid lives.
tl;dr: try again, but with a hotter take.
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from: "Brisbee, Grant"
to:"Floyd, Brian"
date: Thurs, Sep 8, 2016 at 9:55 AM
subject: RE: Tim Tebow signs with mets
sure great fine here you go
The Mets have better things to do.
You might remember them from last year. When they went to a World Series. When they won the National League pennant.
They had better things to do. And they did them. And they won.
One year later, they’re back to their old tricks and they’re trying to make Mets fans ooh and aah, hoping they’ll forget this disappointing season.
It’s a parlor trick. Don’t fall for it.
Look in their left hand, the one they’re shaking to get your attention. But know the penny is in the right hand.
Which is the wrong hand, as always.
The Mets had to borrow the penny, too, because they didn’t have one of their own. That’s the galling part. They can’t even pay for a free agent, but now they’re wasting money on Tim Tebow?
A corn-fed publicity stunt is still a publicity stunt. And it’s a distraction.
It’s a distraction the Mets don’t need.
What could Tebow’s $100,000 bonus have bought for a franchise without money? How about $100,000 of preventive medicine?
You know, to keep their young pitchers healthy.
Oops.
While the Nationals are busy pushing their lead in the NL East to double digits, the Mets are signing ex-football players to play baseball. It’s a real Hail Mary of a move, except you know they won’t be able to throw the ball more than 20 yards.
Say, that reminds me of a football player I used to watch.
Meet the mess, indeed.
-30-
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from: "Floyd, Brian"
to: "Brisbee, Grant" marco.scootaloo@gmail.com
date: Thurs, Sep 8, 2016 at 9:59 AM
subject: RE: Tim Tebow signs with mets
amazing. you get a raise. thanks for all that you do.
and thanks to Tim Tebow for deciding to play baseball! what a gift to us. what a gift.