{"id":482059,"date":"2026-02-18T02:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T02:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/482059\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T02:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T02:46:08","slug":"junior-caminero-open-to-extension-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/482059\/","title":{"rendered":"Junior Caminero Open To Extension Talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

If the Rays are to compete for an AL East crown this year, it\u2019ll probably be behind another huge year from\u00a0Junior Caminero<\/a>. The 22-year-old cemented himself as the face of the franchise with a 45-homer season in which he hit .264\/.311\/.535 across 653 plate appearances. FanGraphs and Baseball Reference each valued him between four and five wins above replacement, the highest on the team.<\/p>\n

That was Caminero\u2019s first full season at the MLB level. He debuted at the tail end of 2023 but was optioned to Triple-A for the first few months of the \u201924 season. He\u2019s two years away from arbitration and under club control through 2030. Caminero tells Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times<\/a> he\u2019d be interested in exploring a long-term extension, though it doesn\u2019t appear the team has opened those conversations yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to (discuss it), but this is not my decision,\u201d the young star said. \u201cI feel this is my city, Tampa. I love Tampa, but this is not my decision. I\u2019ll control what I control \u2014 just go play, have fun.\u201d Caminero\u2019s agent, Rafa Nieves of Republik Sports, said last August that the team hadn\u2019t broached an extension<\/a>. Nieves noted that the organization probably wasn\u2019t in position to make the kind of commitment it would entail. They were midway through an ownership sale and had seen their long-term stadium plans fall through. \u201cHonestly, by the time they\u2019re out of those question marks, it might be too late,\u201d Nieves said at the time.<\/p>\n

The Rays have completed their ownership transfer in the intervening months. The Patrick Zalupski group officially purchased the franchise in late September. The stadium situation is an ongoing question, however. The team is targeting the Hillsborough College campus as the site for a mixed-use development project that would reportedly come with an estimated $2.3 billion price.<\/p>\n

The team hasn\u2019t announced anything publicly, but recent reporting from The Tampa Bay Times indicated they\u2019re hoping for public funding to cover roughly half that amount. They\u2019re still very early in the process and have no guarantees on the public funding front, which naturally raises questions about whether they want to make a significant long-term investment.<\/p>\n

(They also still haven\u2019t gotten an official ruling on whether they\u2019ll be able to void the remaining $164MM in guarantees on the Wander Franco<\/a> contract. Franco is not being paid while he\u2019s on the restricted list pending resolution of a second trial after he was convicted of sexual abuse of a minor in the Dominican Republic last June.)<\/p>\n

Nieves suggested last summer that he could look for a guarantee in the $150-200MM range if they worked on an extension. That\u2019d be a little above the $130-135MM area in which\u00a0Jackson Merrill<\/a> and\u00a0Roman Anthony<\/a> have landed. Caminero is a year closer to free agency than Anthony was. He put up bigger power numbers than Merrill did but was similarly valuable overall in their respective first seasons. Merrill acknowledged at the time he signed his deal that he was likely leaving some money on the table to stay in San Diego.<\/p>\n

The track record for top position player prospects who are this productive in their early 20s is excellent. There\u2019s a strong chance that Caminero is a franchise cornerstone. If the Rays have any reservations about valuing him at that level, it\u2019d probably be related to his home\/road splits. Caminero was dramatically more productive at their temporary home of George M. Steinbrenner Field (.313\/.358\/.595) than he was on the road (.218\/.266\/.477). In all likelihood, that\u2019s a product of an unsustainably low .197 BABIP in road games rather than an indication that he was a huge beneficiary of the minor league home park. The Rays are moving back to Tropicana Field for the 2026-28 seasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the Rays are to compete for an AL East crown this year, it\u2019ll probably be behind another…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,3989,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-482059","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-junior-caminero","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}