Candaele is in his third season as Bisons manager, after splitting the 2022 season as Herd skipper and as interim bench coach for the Blue Jays after being promoted by Toronto in mid-July.
The former Herd player compiled a 122-89 record (.578 winning pct) in his first season and a half with the club. Candaele began the 2022 season leading the Bisons to a 43-42 record before his promotion to the Blue Jays on July 13. In Toronto, Candaele helped then-interim manager John Schneider lead the Blue Jays to a Wild Card berth.
Candaele is the club's 22nd Modern Era Manager. In 2021, he led the Bisons to a 79-47 record and an Northeast Division title in his first season on the bench. With the successful campaign, Candaele became the first person in the modern era to win a division crown as a player and a manager. Candaele was a pivotal member of the 1997 American Association Championship team. He helped guide the Bisons to 29 victories during their re-location to Trenton Thunder Ballpark and finished with 43 overall home wins last season, the second-most in Triple-A East. Buffalo won the Northeast Division by four and a half games with a 79-47 record and completed the ‘Final Stretch’ postseason tournament with an 8-1 record, finishing second to Durham in both the regular season and postseason.
This is Candaele's fifth season as a manager in the Toronto Blue Jays system (sixth overall), having served as skipper of the Single-A Dunedin Blue Jays of the Florida State League in 2018 (69-68) and the short-season Vancouver Canadians of the Northwest League in 2019 (30-46). In 2020, he oversaw all Blue Jays minor leaguers that were not assigned to the club’s alternate training site in Rochester.
Prior to joining the Blue Jays, Candaele was the Seattle Mariners first base coach and outfield/baserunning instructor in 2016 and 2017 and spent five years in the Texas Rangers organization as the minor league field coordinator (2015) and a minor league infield and baserunning coordinator (2011-2014). From 2000-2010, Candaele held various coaching positions at San Luis Obispo (CA) High School and in summer collegiate baseball leagues.
Candaele spent three seasons of his 18-year professional playing career with the Bisons (1995-1997), appearing in 270 games and averaging .265 with 79 extra base hits (17 home runs), 113 RBI and 155 runs scored. He was an American Association All-Star in 1996 in a year he hit .311 with 66 runs scored in 94 games. A favorite among Buffalo fans and his teammates, Candaele was voted by his fellow Bisons as the club’s 1997 Most Inspirational Player. That season, when a torn knee ligament in Game Three of the AA semifinals caused Candaele to miss the remainder of the playoffs, many of his Bisons teammates had “CC 10” written in their caps as they captured the team’s first Triple-A Championship since 1961.
Originally signed by Montreal in 1982, Candaele played 754 Major League games with the Expos, Astros and Indians with a .250 average, 11 home runs and 139 RBI. He appeared in two games for Cleveland during the 1996 American League Divisional Series and played every position in his Big League career other than pitcher and catcher.
Born in Lompoc, CA, Candaele attended the University of Arizona and helped the Wildcats to a 1980 NCAA Championship. His mother, Helen Callaghan, was a member of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and was often referred to as “The Ted Williams of women’s baseball” (Candaele’s aunt, Margaret, also played in the league). It is believed that Helen and Casey are the only mother-son combination to have both played professional baseball.