ST. PETERSBURG -- The first thing Junior Caminero thought when he was traded to the Rays in November 2021 was that he had done something wrong.
Caminero was only 18 years old at the time, a little more than two years removed from beginning his professional career in Cleveland’s organization by signing for a mere $87,500, and he had done well in his only partial season in the Rookie-level Dominican Summer League. Then, just like that, he was shipped off to a new organization in Tampa Bay.
It all happened so fast. What could he have possibly done?
“In that moment, as a young player, I was surprised,” Caminero said in a recent Q&A with MLB.com. “Why did Cleveland trade me quick? We played just one year in the Dominican, and they traded me? I said, ‘Am I a bad guy? Why would they trade me?’”
As Caminero and the Rays face his original organization in the American League Championship Series beginning Monday night at Tropicana Field, many fans will likely find themselves asking that very question.
To be fair, the Guardians almost immediately realized their mistake. As president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti put it bluntly two years afterward: “That’s a bad trade.” And it wasn’t long after the deal went down that the Rays realized it might work out well for them.
Jeff McLerran was the Rays’ director of Minor League operations at the time, charged with overseeing Tampa Bay’s entire farm system. When the Rays acquired Caminero from Cleveland for right-hander Tobias Myers, a Triple-A right-hander who was eligible for the Rule 5 Draft, McLerran wanted to learn more about their newest prospect.
Caminero was hardly a household name at that point, but anyone who saw him felt differently.
McLerran learned that quickly after asking Alejandro Freire, who was a field coordinator for the Rays at the time, to watch and speak with Caminero during a workout at the club’s complex in the Dominican Republic.
Freire initially thought that Caminero looked like a normal skinny young player. Then he saw him take batting practice. The ball sounded different jumping off Caminero’s bat, the same as it does now for the two-time AL All-Star with 87 homers in the past two seasons.
Freire was intrigued, but also a bit confused. There had to be a catch, right?
“I took a look at him to see if something was wrong with his legs, his arm, his body. Then I asked him, ‘Did you have any problems in Cleveland? Did you have a fight with somebody?’” Freire said. “I couldn’t understand.”
Freire called back McLerran and offered a simple evaluation: “I don’t know what we’ve got here, but we better keep an eye on this guy.” Caminero commanded attention right away, earning a promotion to Single-A Charleston in 2022 and finishing the ‘23 season on the Rays’ Wild Card Series roster at only 20 years old.
“The immediate reaction upon acquiring him was wondering how in the world we were able to make that acquisition,” McLerran recalled Sunday afternoon. “Really from the get-go, the guys felt like we had something special with Junior. Just his ability to impact the baseball and what he could do at the plate was not something that they had seen much from a guy that age.
“Obviously, [Caminero was] still very young and raw and had a long way to go. But there was just a lot of excitement with the chances that we were going to have with him.”
So how did the Rays pull off what now looks like an all-time heist?
For starters, they did their homework. Scouting the lowest levels of the Minors was a priority for Kevin Ibach -- now an assistant general manager with the Rays -- when he took over Tampa Bay’s professional scouting department. With the blessing of then-president Matt Silverman and president of baseball operations Erik Neander, the Rays invested more resources into scouting the Rookie-level leagues.
The Rays followed Caminero as an international amateur from Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital. Then they kept watching him as he debuted in 2021 in the Dominican Summer League, which was sparsely scouted at the time, combining in-person looks with video evaluations.
“It was pretty unanimous, from the eyes on the ground on the island that saw him, that it was a different sound every time he swung the bat,” Ibach said. “There were some questions whether he would stay at shortstop, but we knew it was a special bat, and it was a type of bat that would be able to play if he had to move to a corner.”
So when the Guardians expressed interest in Myers, with the intention to add him to their 40-man roster, the Rays were ready to pounce. They initially proposed Caminero as an extra piece in the deal, but they were fully comfortable with getting only him in return.
“I say all the time: If Junior would have played a handful of games in the United States, we probably don't acquire him,” Ibach said. “Being able to put in work in [that] area, really, it's rewarding for the scouts that first saw him. It's rewarding for the department as a whole.”
The result has been pretty rewarding for Caminero, too.
In two years, he transformed from an unheralded infielder to the game’s top prospect. Five years later, he’s one of the top power hitters in the Majors. He was the best player on the AL’s best team this year, an MVP candidate for the Rays who got his start with the team he’s now trying to eliminate from the postseason.
“They were the team that made me a professional. So who knows, without them, if I would even be here,” Caminero said through interpreter Kevin Vera. “This is home. There's been great harmony between me and the organization from the get-go, and the support that I've gotten here has been nothing but love from the organization, from the fanbase as a whole.
“The entire time that I've been here [with the Rays], I've felt at home. They were the ones that made me a Major Leaguer.”