(Ed Delany/Mets Minors)

Many people, myself included, thought Tim Tebow was only in the New York Mets organization to sell tickets and merchandise.

Tebow, 30, hit .226/.309/.347 with 24 doubles, two triples, eight home runs and 52 RBI combined between the Low-A Columbia Fireflies and Advanced-A St. Lucie Mets in his first professional season.

Numbers that are far from horrible considering Tebow hadn’t played organized baseball since his junior year in high school.

Many were baffled when Mets GM Sandy Alderson decided that Tebow would start the 2018 season with the Double-A Binghamton Rumble Ponies.

What did Tebow do in his first Double-A at-bat? The same thing he did in his first Instructional League at-bat, then repeated in his first at-bat for the Fireflies.

He hit a home run.

Tebow’s certainly had a flare for the dramatic back to his days in the NFL. So, we all assumed that Tebow got his first at-bat homer out of the way and he would go back to his .650 OPS after that.

After going 3-for-5 on Friday night for the Binghamton Rumble Ponies, Tebow is hitting a more than respectable .261/.340/.735 through 28 games.

“I don’t really worry about what everybody else is saying,” he said. “This is an opportunity to live out another one of your dreams.”

To put Tebow’s slash line in perspective, the Eastern League average line was .242/.319/.370 coming into Friday night’s action.

He has still struck out an astronomically high 42 times in only 92 at-bats, but he’s arguably been the Rumble Ponies’ third best hitter behind Peter Alonso and Jeff McNeil.

“A lot of really good competition,” Tebow said about playing in Double-A. “The pitchers have a plan against you. They’re able to command better and stick to the plan.”

It’s clear just watching Tebow this season that he’s in more of baseball shape than he was when he still looked like he was bulked up to take hits from linebackers in 2017.

Though it might still be a long shot to see Tebow in the major leagues at some point (Sandy Alderson didn’t seem to think so this spring), he has certainly shown this season that he is a legitimate Double-A player.

“It’s a game of consistency and trying to do it over and over,” Tebow said. “Put good swings together, good at-bats, good games, good series.”