The first time former big-league closer David Aardsma pitched to Tim Tebow in a practice session, Aardsma came away wowed by the way Tebow made adjustments to dipping sliders or hard heaters up and in.
The second time, which was Thursday at a high school field in Arizona, Tebow progressed further, showing such improvement just one week later that Aardsma found his competitive DNA firing.
“It actually really pissed me off,” Aardsma wrote in a text message.
Tebow, the former Heisman Trophy winner who is trying to build a baseball career at 29, even “took me deep” on Thursday, Aardsma said.
“He looked like a much different hitter today,” Aardsma added. “He looked like he is mid-season. He got tired at the end, but that was after a lot of work and probably 12 at-bats.”
So maybe the ex-quarterback’s diamond dream isn’t as crazy as some folks think.
Tebow is preparing for a showcase on Tuesday in Los Angeles, where he’ll do drills and hit in front of scouts from a reported 20 teams – including the Yankees – in an effort to get signed to a pro contract. The lefty-hitting outfielder has been practicing for about a year, including work with former Yankee Chad Moeller at Moeller’s baseball facility in Arizona.
Aardsma, the 34-year-old righty who pitched for Toronto’s Triple-A team this year and has nine seasons in the majors on his resume, admits he was “as skeptical as anybody” about Tebow the first time he threw to him.
“When I walked away, as a pitcher, I was pretty impressed,” said Aardsma, who saved 69 games for Seattle from 2009-2010 and is aiming for a big-league return. “He needs to see a lot more pitching and understand what the pitcher is watching and seeing from him and adjusting. That’s not something you know until you’re in it.
“I’d get him to instructs (instructional league), work his butt and get him to play winter league. Get him on the field every day, facing different pitchers. I would not be surprised if he’s in Double-A next year. I’d put the talent there right now.”
Aardsma got the gig because he and Moeller are friends and Aardsma offered his arm so Moeller could evaluate Tebow against quality pitching. Aardsma said he threw low-90s fastballs to Tebow in addition to breaking stuff.
Late in the first workout, Tebow stopped swinging at certain pitches. “He was working counts,” Aardsma recalled. That stoked Aardsma’s competitiveness, too, and the righty grumbled that Tebow should swing the bat. “I didn’t curse – you never know if there’s a lightning bolt that would come down,” Aardsma joked.
Overall, though, “I was really impressed with his adjustments,” said Aardsma, who wrote about the initial experience on the website baseballessential.com. “You know he’s going to have power – he’s huge. He has a pretty good swing. I wanted to see the adjustments. If a pitch is down, how does he adjust?
“If I threw a slider down, he went down to try to get it. It wasn’t like he was swinging at the same plane and getting fooled.
He was aggressively attacking the ball where it was.”
Tebow was “a little off on it” the first time, but seemed to have improved after the first session, where his best success was a liner up the middle.
On another at-bat in that first session, “I made him look bad,” Aardsma said. He attacked Tebow the same way he would approach a lefty slugger such as the Mets’ Jay Bruce, Aardsma said – two breaking pitches and an inside fastball.
Tebow is trying baseball after a football career that included two national titles at Florida and 35 games in the NFL for the Broncos and Jets. He hasn’t played baseball since he was a junior in high school and some baseball people have criticized the idea that he could flourish after so long a layoff.
“It’s understandable,” Aardsma said. “If I’m a scout, outside looking in, I’d say no chance. But there’s always exceptions to that rule, some people who have innate talent. What’s the risk?”
Other critics hypothesize that Tebow won’t want to ride bumpy buses in small minor-league towns while working his way up. But Aardsma sees it differently.
“After I threw to him, he took BP again and I shagged,” Aardsma said. “I got the bucket (to pick up balls) and Tim had run out to where I was and he said, ‘No, no, I got this.’ I was blown away.
“He doesn’t appear to me like riding a bus and grinding it out is anything he’d mind. He wants to grind it out.”
