Junior Caminero will open the American League Championship Series against the club that first signed him, but the Rays slugger carries no bitterness into Monday night at Tropicana Field. Cleveland gave him his first professional chance. Tampa Bay gave him the runway to become one of the game’s most dangerous young hitters.
When Cleveland traded Caminero to the Rays in November 2021, the 18-year-old infielder thought he had made a mistake. He had signed with Cleveland for $87,500 and had played only a partial season in the Dominican Summer League.
“I was surprised,” Caminero said. “We played just one year in the Dominican, and they traded me? I wondered if I was a bad guy and why they would trade me.”
Quick facts
- ALCS Game 1 is scheduled for Monday at 8 p.m. ET at Tropicana Field.
- Caminero joined Tampa Bay in November 2021 in exchange for right-hander Tobias Myers.
- He has hit 87 home runs over the past two seasons and has been a two-time AL All-Star.
- Caminero reached Single-A Charleston in 2022 and made Tampa Bay’s Wild Card Series roster at age 20 in 2023.
- Cleveland president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti later called the deal “a bad trade.”
The Rays saw something almost immediately. Jeff McLerran, then Tampa Bay’s director of Minor League operations, asked field coordinator Alejandro Freire to get a close look at the new acquisition during a workout in the Dominican Republic.
At first, Freire saw a lean, ordinary-looking young player. Then Caminero stepped into the cage. The sound off the bat stopped the evaluator cold.
Freire checked for an explanation, studying Caminero’s body and asking whether there had been an issue in Cleveland. There was none. His report back to McLerran was simple: Tampa Bay had better watch this kid closely.
“The reaction right away was wondering how we were able to get him,” McLerran said. “From the beginning, people felt we had somebody special. His ability to drive the baseball and what he could do at the plate was unusual for that age.”
Caminero was still raw, McLerran noted, but the upside was obvious. The Rays moved him quickly, sending him to Charleston in 2022 before he reached the postseason roster the following year.
The scouting work behind the swap
Tampa Bay’s front office had put more resources into scouting the lowest levels of the Minor Leagues, including the Dominican Summer League. Kevin Ibach, now an assistant general manager, had made that coverage a priority while running the professional scouting department, with support from Matt Silverman and Erik Neander.
The Rays had tracked Caminero as an amateur in Santo Domingo and continued following him after his 2021 professional debut. The club paired in-person reports with video work in a league that did not receive much scouting attention at the time.
Ibach said the reports were consistent: the ball came off Caminero’s bat differently. There were questions about whether he would remain at shortstop, but Tampa Bay believed the offensive ceiling would play even if he eventually moved to a corner position.
When Cleveland sought Myers for its 40-man roster, the Rays were ready. Myers was a Triple-A right-hander who was Rule 5 Draft eligible, and Tampa Bay initially discussed adding Caminero as part of the return. The Rays were comfortable landing only Caminero.
“If Junior had played even a handful of games in the United States, we probably don’t get him,” Ibach said. He called the outcome rewarding for the scouts who identified Caminero early and for the department that followed through on the evaluation.
Home on the Tampa Bay side
That early conviction has turned into one of the franchise’s biggest player-development wins. Caminero went from an unheralded young infielder to baseball’s top prospect, then into a major league power threat. He has emerged as an MVP candidate and the leading player on the American League’s best club this season.
Now he will try to help eliminate Cleveland, the organization that began his professional career. Caminero said he still recognizes what the Guardians meant to him.
“They were the team that made me a professional,” Caminero said through interpreter Kevin Vera. “Without them, who knows if I would be here.”
But he said Tampa Bay has felt like home from the start, crediting the organization and its fans for the support that helped make him a major leaguer. The trade that once left an 18-year-old wondering what he had done wrong now brings him into the ALCS as one of the central figures in the Rays’ October lineup.
