Buster Olney
Multiple Authors
MIAMI — Junior Caminero seems to be a worthy inheritor to the throne of main league energy hitters, a legacy that Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani and Kyle Schwarber will go on someday to the following era. But there’s extra to Caminero than his extraordinary capability to slug a baseball that appears to attraction to his friends, one thing that pulls them in.
Perhaps it is the gravitational pull of his uncooked pleasure. Representing his nation of Dominican Republic, he hit his first residence run of the World Baseball Classic final Friday towards Nicaragua, a line-drive blast to right-center field that he hit at 116.9 mph to interrupt a 3-3 tie. Caminero screamed loudly as he rounded the bases, with out pretense or a preplanned schtick, responding to his teammates’ celebration of him by shouting fortunately. “It’s beautiful,” he mentioned after. “When I was running the bases, I didn’t hear the people screaming. I cried a couple of tears when I got to the dugout.”
In the DR’s subsequent sport, Caminero was hit by a pitch, and as he took sluggish first steps towards first base, the group hushed appropriately, collectively involved. Then, he broke into an enormous grin, yelled and waved his arms, deflecting the empathy and hyping up the group.
Caminero is 22 years outdated, and with his balanced, clean swing that enables him to drive the ball in all instructions, the third baseman clubbed 45 homers for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2025. Now, after spending the winter coaching to strengthen his physique, he’s posting triple-digit exit velocities nearly each time he makes contact. Caminero, who has two residence runs and 5 RBIs on this yr’s World Baseball Classic, would possibly nicely be the breakout star of the event, and the opposite Dominican gamers and consiglieres — together with Hall of Famers David Ortiz and Adrian Beltre, and DR supervisor Albert Pujols — relish Caminero’s time on middle stage.
“The best thing about Junior Caminero is he’s not afraid for this moment,” Pujols advised reporters final weekend. “He’s not afraid of this spot. He’s willing to open up and get better.”
“When this kid figures it out and gets better…” Pujols mentioned, a slight smile of amazement crossing his face. “Because there’s a lot of little things, especially with his swing he can get better at, and at 22, you don’t touch it, because he’s doing what he’s doing and putting up big numbers.”
Another star on the Dominican Republic crew has had Caminero prime of thoughts for the reason that event started — and it is a participant whom Caminero has appeared as much as for a very long time.
There is an image of Manny Machado, from his Baltimore days, during which he’s sporting an Orioles T-shirt and posing subsequent to a boy who bears the widest, happiest grin: a really younger Caminero. He wore Machado’s No. 13 whereas enjoying newbie baseball, and now wears it for the Rays. Caminero additionally has a series round his neck that bears the No. 13.
“I knew he always loved that number,” Machado mentioned — and so he plotted. When jerseys for the World Baseball Classic have been handed out, Machado walked the No. 13 jersey over to Caminero, who was moved, his face immediately evolving into the identical grin that he bore when his teenage self stood for that image with Machado.
“I thought this would be pretty cool,” mentioned Machado, who’s sporting his favourite quantity, 3, for the event.
It’s not simply his fellow gamers who’re dialed into his success on the worldwide stage — but in addition his main league supervisor.
After Caminero’s first residence run on this World Baseball Classic, Tampa Bay’s Kevin Cash texted his participant to congratulate him. “That was really impressive, to put him in front of that group of players,” Cash mentioned over the telephone a few days later. “I’m seeing a guy who is very intent on continuing in that superstar trajectory.”
Caminero’s 45 homers final yr ranked second all time for a participant in his age-21 season:
Eddie Mathews, 1953: 47
Caminero, 2025: 45
Mel Ott, 1929: 42
Ronald Acuna Jr., 2019: 41
Caminero additionally had by far the best variety of hits on swings of at the very least 80 mph throughout the 2025 season, based on ESPN researcher Paul Hembekides:
Caminero: 61
Giancarlo Stanton: 44
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: 40
With Caminero so younger and productive, and blossoming into superstardom on this event, he is likely to be a candidate for the type of long-term deal that Roman Anthony signed last August with the Boston Red Sox — or the one Jesus Luzardo just signed with the Philadelphia Phillies. Caminero would appear to be the form of participant any franchise would wish to construct round — particularly a crew just like the Rays, who’re working beneath new possession.
But it is extremely unlikely that Caminero will work out a long-term deal with them any time quickly, for a spread of causes. Before Tampa Bay can clearly map out its future payroll, it should await the result in Wander Franco’s authorized state of affairs. In the autumn of 2021, the Rays signed the shortstop to an 11-year, $182 million contract, however he has not performed since August 2023. Franco, who has been on MLB’s restricted listing since his arrest, was convicted of sexual abuse of a minor within the Dominican Republic final summer season and given a suspended sentence of two years, however an appeals court has ruled he must have a retrial.
Additionally, the Rays’ new possession picked up the threads of the earlier regime’s effort to get a new ballpark and seek an expanded Tampa development that would mirror the Braves’ Battery funding north of Atlanta. The Rays’ hope is to open a brand new residence for the 2029 season. But as former proprietor Stuart Sternberg might attest, there’s a variety of doable outcomes on this enterprise. Throw different components into the combo, together with the potential for a baseball work stoppage in 2027 with the present collective bargaining settlement expiring in December, and the bottom-line readability wanted to make an enormous, costly deal with Caminero in all probability is not doable in the meanwhile.
The greatest alternative for the Rays to signal him to a long-term, team-friendly contract might need handed anyway. With his 45-homer breakout of 2025 and the promise we have already seen of extra, Caminero is on a trajectory to comply with Juan Soto‘s path by arbitration and free company and ultimately be a part of Soto and Guerrero within the inside circle of MLB participant compensation, the place the primary variety of their contract begins with a 4, 5, 6 or 7. Caminero, who turns 23 in July, might be eligible totally free company at age 27, within the fall of 2030.
But these selections are far off within the future. Until then, Machado and the opposite Dominican Republic gamers — and the Rays — will get pleasure from watching Caminero and all of his pleasure as his excessive ascent continues.
