I don’t think Candy was the block, so much.
Schoop has no future with this team beyond next year. He’s a definite short-timer. (Or at least he had better be!)
As silly as it sounds right now given how bad he has done this year so far, Candy is (or has been) considered a potential contributor to the next playoff team. There would have been more of a future to a 3B-2B combo of Candy and Paredes with Schoop leaving, than of Paredes and Schoop with Candy leaving. That’s why I believe it was Schoop blocking Paredes.
Either way, it seemed that even though Paredes was always considered to have sleeper star potential in the return from that Alex Avila-Justin Wilson trade, he was never going to get the chance to make it happen here. His fate was sealed when the Tigers signed Schoop to the 2/15 (or, more exactly, a 1/7.5 with a player option!) on the strength of a middling 2-win performance last year (and at first base!)
It’s making me wonder whether there was something non-baseball happening behind the scenes that the Tigers front office or coaching didn’t like, and didn’t want to keep around. Attitude? Work ethic? Cultural mismatch? It certainly wasn’t lack of talent or potential.