The Toronto Blue Jays are naming former Buffalo Bisons utility man Casey Candaele as the team's manager for 2021, Sportsnet reported Thursday.
Candaele, 60, spent last season as the Jays' minor-league field coordinator, overseeing players not assigned to the alternate training site in Rochester. He joined the Toronto organization in 2018 as manager of Class A Dunedin, posting a 69-68 record, and managed short-season Class A Vancouver to a 30-46 mark in 2019. Candaele's coaching career is best known for his role as the first-base coach of the Seattle Mariners from 2015-17.
Candaele replaces Ken Huckaby, who was hired to manage the Herd for 2020 but never got the chance when the minor-league season was canceled and he was fired by the Blue Jays as they cut costs in their minor-league staffing. There has been no announcements by Major League Baseball about the 2021 minor-league season, although the Bisons are expected to have a season beginning sometime in April.
People are also reading…
Candaele joined the Bisons as a minor-league free agent in 1995 and immediately became one of team president Bob Rich's favorite players during the club's 14 years with parent Cleveland Indians. He batted .247 with four homers and 38 RBIs in 97 games for the Herd in '95, as Buffalo lost a decisive Game 5 of the American Association championship series to Louisville. He batted .311-6-37 in 94 games for the Bisons in 1996, but they lost a first-round series to Indianapolis. Candaele then got called up to Cleveland and was on base for Albert Belle's grand slam in Game 3 of the division series against Baltimore.
In 1997, the Bisons finally broke through to win their first Association championship with a three-game sweep of the Iowa Cubs. Candaele batted .228-7-38 in 73 games that season while battling injuries. Candaele missed the championship series with a torn knee ligament suffered in the semifinals vs. Indianapolis but was on hand for the clubhouse celebration in Des Moines.
Bob Rich Jr. has a baseball. Not just any baseball. It’s one the Bisons’ president has waited to grasp since he saved the team from extinction when it was a foundering Double-A franchise in 1983. It’s the ball first baseman Richie Sexson squeezed into his glove for the last out of Buffalo’s American Association championship-clinching victory Wednesday night at
Candaele, who jokingly referred to Rich as "Dad," spoke to the club a month earlier at Rich's behest during a team outing at the owner's Ontario summer home. He implored them to win the owner's first title and they delivered.
"I just kind of ad-libbed it," Candaele said that night in Iowa. "I ended it up by saying, 'Let's go out and win one for the 'Richer.' It's great to see the joy on Bob and Mindy's faces. When an owner looks at you as part of his family and treats you as such, it makes it that much more special."
Candaele moved on to the Houston organization in 1998 and spent the entire season at Triple-A New Orleans, where he helped the Zephrys defeat the Bisons, three games to one, in the inaugural Triple-A World Series at Las Vegas.
Candaele was a .250 hitter over parts of nine seasons in the big leagues after being signed by the Montreal Expos as an undrafted free agent in 1982. He played for the Expos, Houston and Cleveland and was best known for playing shortstop, second base and center field. He was a .286 hitter for the Astros in 1990 and had a career-high 50 RBIs while playing 151 games for Houston in 1991.
Candaele's mother, Helen Callaghan, was a standout player in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the 1940s circuit that was the subject of the iconic 1992 film "A League of Their Own" starring Tom Hanks, Madonna, Geena Davis and Rosie O'Donnell.
The Blue Jays announced their major-league coaching staff Thursday and former Bisons outfielder Mark Budzinski will return for his third season as first-base coach under manager Charlie Montoyo.
