Eduardo Valencia's path to Tigers' 40-man roster.

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00:01Let me walk you through the remarkable journey of catcher Eduardo Valencia.

00:05Valencia stepped into the 2025 season with one clear simple goal, to finish the year playing

00:10at the AAA level. Now, that might sound straightforward, but for this Tigers minor

00:14league catcher this was a huge challenge set at a critical point in his career. Think about this,

00:20he had been in the Tigers system for 7 years, after signing as a teenager from Venezuela.

00:24In all that time he had played just one game above, the single, A level. A single start for

00:30AA Erie back in mid-July of 2022 just because the team needed an extra catcher that day,

00:35he was still playing for single A Lakeland at the end of the 2024 season, and he was 24 years old,

00:42that's 3 years older than the average player in the Florida State League at that time.

00:46On top of that, he was considered far down the list among the catchers in the Tigers organization,

00:51he'd never played more than 62 games in a single season, and he had never been the main primary

00:57catcher at any level he played. So just imagine how he must have felt this past Tuesday, when the

01:02Tigers decided to add him to their 40-man roster. This is a really significant move, the Tigers already

01:08have a young major league catcher, Dylan Dingler who just won a gold glove award, they also have two

01:13other highly regarded catching prospects, Josue Briceño and Thayron Liranzo. So for them to add

01:21Valencia shows how much they value him, and just as importantly, it shows they knew other teams were

01:27highly interested in him, so they protected him from being taken in the upcoming Rule 5 draft.

01:33And listen, this wasn't just an act of charity. In this Tigers organization, we've seen players like

01:38Kerry Carpenter, Parker Meadows, and Wensil Perez figure things out and make it to the big leagues

01:43after it seemed their progress had stalled. Well, Valencia now has a chance to be the next great

01:48success story. He completely earned this with his incredible performance in the 2025 season,

01:54he said it himself before a mid-September game with AAA Toledo.

01:57Thank God for the season that I've had. He explained that his goal was simply to stay healthy,

02:03and he was finally able to stay on the field, but he was sure to note that, the mentality has

02:08been the same, as in years prior. The mentality was the same, but the results on the field were

02:14unlike anything he had ever done as a professional, Valencia ended up batting 3-1-1, with 24 home runs,

02:21and 95 RBIs over 103 games, splitting his time between Toledo and Erie. His performance with

02:29the Mud Hens was especially dominant, where he posted a 1.027 OPS in 50 games. To put that in

02:35perspective, only 4 other minor league players at any level drove in more runs than he did this past

02:41season. His overall 941 OPS, ranked 8th among all full-season minor league players, and his 559

02:48slugging percentage, ranked 9th, this is a massive breakthrough. When you consider his history,

02:54before this season, he had only 12 home runs over his entire 260-game career in the minors,

03:00and his career OPS was still just 768. No one saw this coming. But he'll tell you, it didn't come easy.

03:09He went into the last offseason with a very specific list of things to improve. First, he wanted to get

03:14into better physical shape. He asked himself, what can I do with my body to play the whole year?

03:20That was, the whole focus, the whole offseason. He clarified that it, wasn't just working out,

03:25but how can I get in the best shape to play every day, even if it's not the case? Second,

03:30he worked hard on improving his swing, getting help from Tigers instructors while he was training

03:35back home in Venezuela. He made a technical adjustment. I lowered my hands a little bit more,

03:39where I didn't have to move too much. Then, once the hands were lower, I just worked on trying to be

03:45as direct as possible to the ball. And third, like many young hitters today, he focused on raising his

03:51launch angle. His goal was clear. I wanted to work on hitting the ball in the air more often and more

03:56consistently. All the adjustments were made with that goal. When he arrived at spring training,

04:02he shifted his focus to pitch selection. He worked on laying off pitches that were low and out of the

04:07strike zone, to force pitchers to throw him pitches he could drive in the upper part of the zone.

04:13This wasn't about reducing strikeouts. He's actually kept his strikeout rate below 20% every

04:18year of his career. The issue was that he had posted ground ball rates of 49% or higher every year.

04:25He needed to focus his swings on pitches he could lift. He emphasized this during hitting work with his

04:31eerie hitting coach, CJ Wamsley. As Valencia put it, the key to everything has been being more patient

04:37at the plate, just being more disciplined and waiting for my pitch, having the approach before

04:41I get to the plate, and then applying it. And the results of all this work were absolutely startling.

04:47According to Fangraphs, his fly ball rate of 32.0% was nearly a career high, his 24.6% line drive rate was

04:55easily the best of his career, and so was his 25.3% home run to fly ball ratio, and stat cast data shows

05:03his hard hit rate topped 47%. Now defensively, as a catcher, Valencia is still a work in progress,

05:10he'll need to continue improving his skills behind the plate and his pitch calling before he's ready

05:14for the big leagues. But the fact that he's now this close to the point where he's worrying about

05:19those final touches, is a huge accomplishment in itself. The Tigers remember losing a catcher,

05:26Liam Hicks, in last year's Rule 5 draft to the Marlins, and, they, were determined not to let

05:32the same thing happen to Valencia. The Tigers now have four catchers on their 40-man roster,

05:37plus a veteran, Thomas Nito, in the organization on a minor league contract. But, one thing is clear,

05:44Eduardo Valencia is officially on the radar. His outlook is calm and faithful. I've left

05:53everything in God's hands, whenever my time comes, it will come. So, do you think Eduardo

05:59Valencia's remarkable journey will ultimately lead him to become the Tigers' next great success story?

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