Eduardo Valencia knows what it's like to be a minor league baseball player.For nine years, including a 2020 in which he didn't even get a season, Valencia traveled the journey of a ballplayer who is never certain to make it to MLB.He was always with the Detroit Tigers' organization, from the moment he signed out of Venezuela when he was a teenager.But there was 2018 in the Dominican Summer League, 2019 in the Gulf Coast League, 2021 in the Florida Complex League and then in Single-A Lakeland and High-A West Michigan.He repeated some of those stops while first rising to Double-A Erie in 2022 and Triple-A Toledo in 2025.In all, before Thursday, Valencia had accumulated 1,766 minor league plate appearances in 439 games.MORE: How Rays turned Tim Beckham bust draft pick into Junior CamineroIt w