Junior Caminero’s first full Major League season has been a success, as the former star prospect has hit .258/.297/.523 with 32 home runs over his first 472 plate appearances. The low walk rate, Caminero’s tendency to chase pitches off the plate, and subpar defensive metrics at third base indicate that he hasn’t gotten everything figured out just yet, but there’s clearly a lot to like about a player who just turned 22 last month.
Despite this early success, the Rays haven’t yet broached the subject of a contract extension with Caminero’s camp, agent Rafa Nieves tells Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Early-career extensions have been a chief element of the Rays’ team-building strategy over the years, but in Caminero’s case, Nieves feels “the fact that at this point they haven’t knocked on his door, the only reason is that their hands are tied….The [Rays] are not in position to make that commitment with all the question marks surrounding their financial future. That’s why I think they haven’t made an attempt. And, honestly, by the time they’re out of those question marks, it might be too late.”
The three major “question marks” cited by Nieves begin with the most obvious issue of the Rays’ temporary stay at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. Tropicana Field is undergoing repairs with the idea that the Rays’ old ballpark will once again be ready for game action by Opening Day 2026, though since the repair work only officially began in July, it may still be a while before that planned timeline is confirmed. The club is also expected to be returning to its former stadium under new ownership, as the Rays’ sale to the group led by Patrick Zalupski is on pace to be finalized at some point in September.
Turning to the baseball payroll itself, making a major commitment to Caminero may not be feasible until Wander Franco’s situation has been sorted. Franco was found guilty of sexual abuse of a minor in the Dominican Republic in June, and received a two-year suspended sentence. With the court case complete, Major League Baseball is expected to weigh in at some point about what type of discipline Franco will face under the MLB/MLBPA joint domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse policy. Tampa Bay signed Franco to the largest contract in franchise history (an 11-year, $182MM extension) in November 2021, and $164MM remains on that deal covering the 2026-32 seasons.
Any one of these factors — let alone all three — would be a logical reason for the Rays to hold off on exploring a long-term deal with Caminero. There is also the fact that the club doesn’t have any real immediate need to negotiate a deal so soon, since Caminero isn’t arbitration-eligible until 2028 and isn’t eligible for free agency until after the 2030 season.
As Nieves noted, however, the team’s ideal window to lock up Caminero may have already passed. Extending him in 2023 (when he made his MLB debut) or during the 2024 season would’ve allowed Tampa Bay to negotiate more of a team-friendly price, before Caminero had done much to prove himself in the majors. Now that Caminero has already enjoyed some success at the big league level, his asking price has naturally gone up.
Nieves suggests an extension would cost the Rays “probably $150-200MM,” pointing to recent comps of other prominent young stars who signed contracts before amassing one full year of Major League service time. Obviously an agent is always going to aim high when discussing a client’s earning potential, and the Rays could counter by arguing that Caminero wasn’t quite as much of a sure thing coming up the minor league ranks as those other highly-touted players. Tampa Bay acquired Caminero from the Guardians for Tobias Myers in November 2021, in a trade that flew under everyone’s radar until Caminero continued his Dominican Summer League dominance into the Rays’ farm system in 2022.
If $150MM is the floor for what Nieves is looking for in a Caminero extension, the clock could already be unofficially ticking on the third baseman’s time in Tampa. Naturally it remains to be seen how Zalupski could approach spending or how the team’s finances could be changed under new ownership, but for now, the Rays might opt to take advantage of Caminero as a pre-arbitration bargain and then consider trades once arbitration starts boosting his salaries.
