Eduardo Valencia went into the 2025 season with a simple goal: Finish the year at Triple-A. It sounds straightforward enough, but for the Tigers Minor League catcher, it was a challenge he set at what could be considered an intersection in his career. After seven years in the Tigers’ system since signing as a teenager out of Venezuela, he had played one game above Single-A, a random mid-July start for Double-A Erie in the middle of 2022 when the SeaWolves needed another catcher. He was still at Single-A Lakeland to end the 2024 season at age 24 -- three years above the weighted average age for the Florida State League at the time -- and he was far down in the pecking order of catchers in the system. He hadn’t played more than 62 games in a season, and he hadn’t been the primary catcher at any level. Imagine, then, his emotions on Tuesday, when the Tigers added him to their 40-man roster. A club that has a young Major League catcher coming off a Gold Glove Award in Dillon Dingler and two highly regarded catching prospects in Josue Briceño and Thayron Liranzo thought enough of Valencia -- and just as important, of how highly other organizations thought of him -- to add him to the roster and protect him from the Rule 5 Draft. It wasn’t an act of charity. In an organization that has seen Kerry Carpenter, Parker Meadows and Wenceel Pérez figure things out and work their way to the big leagues after seemingly stalling in the system, Valencia has a chance to be the next big story. His incredible 2025 season earned it. “Thank God for the season that I’ve had,” he said through a translator before a mid-September game with Triple-A Toledo. “The goal was to stay healthy, and I’ve been able to stay on the field. But the mentality has been the same as in years prior.” |
The mentality was the same, but the results were unlike anything he had posted as a pro. Valencia batted .311 with 24 homers and 95 RBIs over 103 games between Toledo and Erie, including a 1.027 OPS in 50 games for the Mud Hens. Just four Minor League players drove in more runs at any level this past season, his .941 OPS ranked eighth among full-season Minor League players and his .559 slugging percentage ranked ninth. For a player who entered the season with 12 home runs over 260 career Minor League games, and who still owns a .768 career OPS, it was a breakthrough no one saw coming. But it didn’t come easy. Valencia said he went into last offseason with a list of points for improvement: • He wanted to get in better shape. “What can I do with my body to play the whole year? That was the whole focus the whole offseason,” he said. “It wasn't just working out, but how can I get in the best shape to play every day, even if it's not the case.” • He wanted to improve his swing, which he worked on with help from Tigers instructors while working out in his native Venezuela. “I lowered my hands a little bit more,” he said, “where I didn't have to move too much. Then once the hands were lower, I just worked on trying to be as direct as possible to the ball.” • Like a lot of young hitters, he worked on raising his launch angle. “I wanted to work on hitting the ball in the air more often and more consistently,” he said. “All the adjustments were made with that goal.” |
Once Valencia arrived at Spring Training, he worked on pitch selection, trying to lay off pitches down and out of the zone in hopes of forcing pitchers to throw the ball up in the zone again. It wasn’t a matter of cutting down on strikeouts; he has kept his strikeout rate below 20 percent every year as a pro. But after posting ground-ball rates of 49 percent or higher every year, he needed to focus his swings on pitches he could elevate, a point that he emphasized in hitting work with Erie hitting coach C.J. Wamsley. “The key to everything,” he said, “has been being more patient at the plate, just being more disciplined and waiting for my pitch, having the approach before I get [to the plate] and then applying it.” The results were startling. Valencia’s 32.0 percent fly-ball rate was just off his career high from 2021. His 24.6 percent line-drive rate was easily his best. At the same time, a quarter of his fly balls ended up being home runs. His hard-hit rate topped 47 percent, according to Statcast. Catchingwise, Valencia remains a work in progress, and he’ll need to improve behind the plate and with his pitch calling before he gets to the big leagues. But getting this close to the big leagues to worry about those finishing touches is progress in itself, to the point where he can think about the big leagues. The Tigers lost a catcher in last year’s Rule 5 Draft when Liam Hicks went to the Marlins. They didn’t want to lose Valencia. The Tigers now have four catchers on their 40-man roster, plus veteran Tomas Nido in the organization on a Minor League contract. But Valencia is clearly on the radar. “I’ve left everything in God's hands,” he said. “Whenever my time comes, it will come.” |
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