The Detroit Tigers have received infamously little in trade returns during the Al Avila era, but Jeimer Candelario has been a rare clear win. The back-to-back Tiger of the Year award winner has been a crucial part of the organization’s rebuild both on and off the field, and now that the future is starting to come into reality, Candelario looks be right in the middle of it all.
This was not always the expectation. This author offered a 2019 season review titled “Jeimer Candelario is probably not the Third Baseman Of The Future” which captured the presumed stopgap nature of his deployment.