Detroit Tigers Trade Rumors: Jeimer Candelario being targeted

It hasn’t always been pretty, but the Detroit Tigers continue to play solid baseball since early May, and corner infielder Jeimer Candelario has been one of their most consistently productive players.

Over the past calendar year Jeimer Candelario has produced 3.2 fWAR, which ranks 54th out of 122 qualified position players. If you’re curious, Fernando Tatis Jr. leads baseball with 7.3 fWAR in that time, while Miguel Cabrera ranks last at -0.6.

So Jeimer Candelario appears to be a slightly above-average player, he doesn’t turn 28 until November, and he’s not a free agent until after the 2023 season. Why would the Detroit Tigers want to trade him?

So far there’s no indication they actually want to. But, according to Cody Stavenhagen at The Athletic ($), the Tigers have taken calls from other teams expressing interest in Candelario.

The Detroit Tigers are in a bit of a tricky area with Candelario. He’s one of just a few solid offensive players on their team, and he’s young enough to be a piece of a future contender. But he’s also not the sort of traditional thumper teams want from their corner infielders, and the club has decent depth at his position.

Jeimer Candelario probably won’t be traded. But it behooves the Tigers to at least listen to offers, and that means we should try to guess what the club could get for him.

Jeimer Candelario’s Value

We have a couple of very recent real-world trades to use as a guide for Jemier Candelario’s actual trade value, but I always like to nerd it up with a bit of math first. Let’s play the feud!

WAR numbers based on ZiPS. Dollar values are estimates.

That’s a pretty solid amount of surplus value. FanGraphs considers it consistent with the value of the top rung of 50FV prospects. Prospects who project as average big leaguers, essentially.

But it’s increasingly rare for teams to trade that caliber of prospect, particularly when they are dealing for average big leaguers like Candelario. Adam Frazier brought back a 40FV prospect and two 35+FV prospects, while Cesar Hernandez landed Cleveland a single 40FV prospect.

Jeimer Candelario is a more well-rounded player than either Frazier or Hernandez, but he’s not having as loud of a season as either of them. So what kind of return could the Detroit Tigers expect in a trade? Hit the jump to see our best guesses.