This ESPN graphic about Tim Tebow’s contact percentage is, uh, flawed

When it comes to Tim Tebow, it’s as if the sports media does a collective brain fart. Like, everyone has the urge to be clear-headed and rational, but the lure of saying rash and ridiculous nonsense is too much to resist.

That’s how we get truly un-credible quotes from anonymous sources about Tebow’s power and, um, interesting graphics like this one, from ESPN:

Lololololololol ok pic.twitter.com/mFmUPdok9e

— Ted Berg (@OGTedBerg) August 31, 2016

So yeah, Tim Tebow saw 58 pitches from former MLB relievers Chad Smith and David Aardsma at his workout Tuesday and made contact with 44 of them. If those pitches had come during a Major-League game, from the arms of a diverse array of active big-leaguers, we would warn against trusting in small sample sizes and then cautiously compare his contact rate to that of solid players like Hanley Ramirez, Asdrubal Cabrera, and Rajai Davis.

Since no hitter is evaluated on contact-rate alone, we would then assess a number of other factors before determining whether Tebow is a good hitter.

But maybe since Tebow was facing washed-up former players whose stuff he got a chance to get used to over the course of the session and since 58 pitches isn’t that many in a statistical sense and since we have no other information about his hitting ability, we should resist conclusions.

Or you know, maybe not. We’ve got to have an opinion about Tebow at all times, so…

Tim Tebow is the next Asdrubal Cabrera. Spread the word.