Before I was an Over the Monster contributor and, in fact, nearly a decade ago at this point, I was a summer intern/beat writer for the Albany Times Union, a local newspaper in Albany, New York. My beat for the Times Union was covering the Tri-City ValleyCats. If you are not a fervent New York-Penn League aficionado, then you may not know that the ValleyCats are the Single-A short season affiliate of the Houston Astros.
While covering the 2009 ValleyCats, I wrote about, spoke with and evaluated the play of a number of minor leaguers. Most of them had just been drafted earlier that summer and would never make the MLB level.