ST. PETERSBURG -- A busy awards week hasn’t always followed the best seasons in Rays history.
This year is going to be different.
The Rays have three finalists for the major awards handed out by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, as it was revealed Monday night on MLB Network.
Junior Caminero will finish no worse than third in the American League MVP Award voting. Kevin Cash has a chance to claim his third AL Manager of the Year Award, which would place him in rare company. And Bryan Baker could bring home the first AL Reliever of the Year Award ever presented by the BBWAA.
Those Rays aren’t necessarily viewed as favorites in their respective races, but they all have a strong case to be considered for three of the most prestigious awards that baseball has to offer.
Cash, who won the AL Manager of the Year Award in 2020 and ’21, is up against White Sox manager Will Venable and Red Sox skipper Chad Tracy. The winner will be revealed on MLB Network on Nov. 10, with coverage set to begin at 7 p.m. ET.
Baker, who tied for the Major League lead in saves with 41, is a finalist for the AL Reliever of the Year Award alongside Guardians closer Cade Smith and Blue Jays reliever Louis Varland. The winner will be announced on MLB Network on Nov. 11, the same day as the Cy Young Award presentation, with MLB Network’s coverage beginning at 7 p.m. ET.
Finally, Caminero has already guaranteed himself the highest AL MVP finish in franchise history. He is a finalist for the award along with Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez and Royals star Bobby Witt Jr. The winner will be revealed on Nov. 12 at 7 p.m. ET on MLB Network.
Caminero’s achievement is perhaps the most notable, if only because he has already entered rarefied air for a Tampa Bay player. Previously, the highest MVP finishes in franchise history belonged to Evan Longoria (sixth in 2010 and ’13) and Yandy Díaz (sixth in 2023). No Ray has ever placed in the top five, and Caminero is assured to finish at least third.
Alvarez is viewed as the favorite after leading the Majors in batting average (.316), on-base percentage (.432), slugging percentage (.601) and walks (109) while also ranking highly in homers (42) and RBIs (106) and leading the AL in total bases (341).
But Caminero has a couple arguments in his favor. For one, he started all 162 regular-season games at third base for the Rays, and having to play defense on a daily basis creates a clear difference between him and the primary DH Alvarez.
Caminero was also the best player on the AL’s best team, the 98-win Rays, whereas the Astros snuck into the playoffs as the 81-win AL West champions. And while his numbers weren’t quite as eye-catching as Alvarez's, he slashed .276/.360/.524 with a 144 OPS+, 42 homers and 101 RBIs.
The All-Star third baseman made tremendous improvements in the field as the season went on, and his biggest leap at the plate was his discipline, as he drew nearly twice as many walks as he did in 2025 and boosted his OBP from .311 to .360 without sacrificing his incredible raw power.
Cash has a similarly compelling case, although he’s facing tough competition due to the surprising success of Venable’s White Sox and the remarkable in-season turnaround engineered by Tracy’s Red Sox.
But voters shouldn’t have overlooked what Cash accomplished with a club that was widely predicted to finish last in the AL East. The Rays spent most of the season atop the AL, won their always-challenging division and claimed the top spot in the league’s postseason field by finishing 98-64.
And Cash had his usual hand in the Rays’ success, creating a comfortable culture for players to perform at their best while implementing some tactics that were once deemed impractical by the game’s smartest analytical minds. Few, if any, managers utilize their entire roster as effectively as Cash does, helping the Rays get the most out of a club with the sixth-lowest payroll in the Majors.
One of the tactics Cash deployed this season was reintroducing a traditional closer: Baker, who emerged as a first-time All-Star and wound up being arguably the game’s best ninth-inning arm.
Baker and Smith tied for the Major League lead with 41 saves, and Baker’s 1.44 ERA was the second-lowest in the Majors (behind Varland, 1.27) among pitchers who worked at least 60 innings. The right-hander’s consistency was perhaps his most important trait, as he didn’t blow a save after May 13, reeling off a streak of 30 consecutive converted save opportunities to finish the season -- plus five more in the postseason, when he didn’t allow a run in 10 innings over nine appearances.