CBS Sports sees this Detroit Tiger as a breakout candidate in 2021

CBS Sports lists potential breakout candidates for all MLB teams in 2021 and gives their thoughts on one Detroit Tiger in particular.

While the Detroit Tigers’ rebuilding project continues to be a slog as Spring Training finally arrives, there could be some areas of excitement for a franchise that has been void of it for almost 5 years now.

Under new coach A.J. Hinch, the Tigers are hoping its combination of youth and veterans looking for another shot at the Majors can create an interesting product on the field.

While the Tigers could very well remain bottom-feeders in baseball once more, one outlet sees one potential Tiger as a breakout candidate for the 2021 season.

Granted CBS Sports had to list a player for every team by default, CBS Sports baseball analyst singled out Victor Reyes as a potential breakout candidate for the Tigers this season.

“As explained in the introduction, we try to make this process more interesting for the reader and more challenging for the author by abstaining from picking top prospects,” Anderson wrote. “Sometimes, though, that leaves you with a situation like this one, where you have no real choice other than to tab a player like Reyes, whose chances of ‘breaking out’ are remote. He's a fast runner, and at 6-foot-5 he's probably the tallest singles hitter in the league, so he's got that going for him. Otherwise? Reyes has at least average raw power that he can't access because of his mechanics and his swing-happy approach. The best-case scenario here entails him getting enough playing time to become the first Tigers outfielder since Rajai Davis with 10 triples and 10 stolen bases. Shy of that, he seems unlikely to qualify as a ‘hit’ in next year's column.”

While Reyes’ pick is certainly one out of necessity, Reyes’ production in Detroit the last three seasons doesn’t jump off the stat sheet after spending the last three seasons with the Tigers. Playing 100 games in his first year, Reyes saw the numbers of games played in fall to 69 in 2019 and 57 in 2020 with COVID certainly having something to do with the 2020 numbers.

With a .271 batting average, .373 slugging percentage with 187 hits, 94 runs and 8 home runs, the Tigers would certainly take anything above that three-year average from Reyes.

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