The Tigers Should Steal This Upcoming Free Agent Away From the Indians After the 2020 Season

The Detroit Tigers should target this upcoming Cleveland Indians free agent next offseason.
The Detroit Tigers should target this upcoming Cleveland Indians free agent next offseason. / Duane Burleson/Getty Images
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The AL Central is one of baseball's most competitive divisions, and if the Detroit Tigers want to get back in the running any time soon, they'll need to make some cutthroat moves.

That's why it would make a ton of sense to steal Cesar Hernandez away from the Cleveland Indians when he becomes an unrestricted free agent next offseason.

The Detroit Tigers brought in Jonathan Schoop to play second base in 2020, but he's only on a one-year deal. If he proves his 2019 bounce-back wasn't a fluke then his services will probably be sought after by some contenders, and if his production drops again then Detroit may not want to bring him back anyway.

Hernandez isn't quite as young as Schoop, but he's still only 30, so he should still have plenty of solid play left in him.

He's only hit below .270 once in the last five seasons, and he has a career .277/.325/.381 slash line with a .321 weight on-base average (wOBA). Those aren't monster numbers by any stretch, but considering he also offers big value as a plus defender and has at least 15 steals in four of the last five years, they're more than solid enough.

Signing Hernandez next offseason would not only be a nice boost for the Tigers infield, but it would also hurt Cleveland in the process. That would be a win-win for Detroit.


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Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in their articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.