Eric Valent – Miami Marlins | Scouting at a High Level

Eric Valent is a former Major League Baseball player, now National Scouting Supervisor for the Miami Marlins. He was drafted out of High School by the Detroit Tigers in the 26th round of the 1995 Major League Baseball Draft, but decided to go to college instead. He spent his collegiate playing career at UCLA and was drafted at the end of his junior year by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1st round of the 1998 MLB Draft. Eric had his MLB Debut in June of 2001 and spent the next 5 seasons in the MLB and one more playing professionally in Japan before putting up his cleats and retiring. He quickly jumped into coaching and spent time as a Minor League hitting coach in the Phillies organization. He then began his scouting career and in 2017 was hired by the Miami Marlins as their National Scouting Supervisor, where he still remains. We start off this podcast asking Eric what his best memory was in his time as an amateur baseball player. Then, diving into a conversation about building his love for the game, as well as playing multiple sports and when to stop and focus on one. Eric and I also talk about listening to Regional and Area Scouts, variables that separate professional prospects from one another, professionals’ ability to overcome failure and the new difficulties of being a part-time player. We finish of this podcast discussing how important velocity is when drafting pitchers and what goes into drafting non-Division I college baseball players. Lock into this podcast to hear and learn from former MLB player turned MLB National Scouting Supervisor, Eric Valent.