Junior Caminero will be front and center when the Tampa Bay Rays take on the Cleveland Guardians in ALCS Game 1 on Monday night. Of course, here on Earth 1, we know that Caminero has been the engine behind Tampa's dream season, coming off a second straight 40-homer campaign in which he emerged as a legit MVP candidate and one of the best position players in baseball. But it's not too hard to imagine a world in which Caminero is entering this series on the other side.
Once upon a time, Caminero began his pro career with the Guardians, with whom he signed as an international free agent back in 2019. And then, two and a half years later, Cleveland just ... decided they didn't really want him anymore.
Why did the Guardians trade Junior Caminero?
OK, so it's a little more complicated than that. Caminero was more or less an afterthought as an amateur prospect; while the best players in the 2019 international class were signing for millions — that same summer, the Yankees landed Jasson Dominguez with a $5.1 million signing bonus — Caminero signed with Cleveland for just $87,500. The 2020 Minor League season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and while he crushed his first taste of pro ball in the Dominican Summer League in 2021, he was still an 18-year-old who'd yet to come to the States.
Coming off a disappointing 80-82 season that year, the Guardians decided they didn't want to wait, so they flipped him to Tampa for righty Tobias Myers. It's worth noting that Myers was himself a legitimate prospect, one who'd just posted a 3.90 ERA with a 30.5 percent K rate to just a 5.8 walk rate across 117.2 innings between Double-A and Triple-A. The Rays only got rid him of because they were facing a 40-man roster crunch and needed to flip someone for a younger player who didn't need to be protected from the Rule 5 Draft.
Of course, all the justification in the world doesn't change the end result. Caminero just kept on hitting; he made his Major League debut in 2023, and by the start of 2024 he was universally viewed as one of the best prospects in the sport. Myers, on the other hand, posted a 6.00 ERA in 14 Triple-A starts before being DFA'd. He bounced around the league for a bit before finally settling in Milwaukee, where he carved out a role with the Brewers shuttling between the rotation and the bullpen.
Cleveland gave up on a potential Hall of Famer — and make no mistake, that's the trajectory Caminero is on right now — for one bad half-season in the high Minors. That's not just a bad trade; that's a trade that can haunt a fan base for decades. But just where does it stack up among the worst trades in MLB history?
Junior Caminero deal is a cut below the worst trades in MLB history — for now
There have been a lot of terrible trades over more than a century of Major League Baseball. Like, a truly dizzying amount. And for as good as Caminero already is, and as awful as this trade looks for the Guardians at the moment, it's hard for a fourth-year player to stack up against the likes of Babe Ruth — who was, of course, traded from the Red Sox to the Yankees for the low, low price of $100,000 (plus a $350,000 loan).
There's also a laundry list of Hall of Fame players who were given away by unsuspecting teams. The Tigers cut bait with Michigan native John Smoltz for two-and-half mediocre seasons from Doyle Alexander. The Red Sox shipped Connecticut native Jeff Bagwell to Houston for Larry Andersen, who pitched all of 22 innings in Boston. The Mets sent Nolan Ryan to the Angels as part of a package for Jim Fregosi, who posted a .646 OPS across parts of two seasons in Queens.
It's hard to put Caminero in the same class just yet, if only because so much of his career has yet to be written. But if we're just going by recent history — say, the last 10-15 years, so dealing with mostly still active players — it's a much different conversation.
Where does Junior Caminero trade rank among the worst in recent MLB history?
Here's our list of the five worst trades since 2010, and where the Caminero heist fits.
Honorable mentions
- Speaking of Rays boondoggles: The Chris Archer deal brought Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows and Shane Baz to Tampa, although Meadows' career falling apart and Glasnow's health concerns leave it just off the final list
- The Rockies got essentially nothing in return for Nolan Arenado, but he was already toward the end of his prime and on a hefty contract
- The Nationals got shockingly little in return for Max Scherzer and Trea Turner, but the former was a rental while the latter had just 1.5 years of control remaining, and at least Keibert Ruiz and Josiah Gray are still around and have flashed in the past
- The Cardinals gave up both Sandy Alcantara and Zac Gallen for Marcell Ozuna in the winter of 2017, but hey, at least Ozuna was a pretty good player for St. Louis for a couple years
- The Cubs flipping Dylan Cease and Eloy Jimenez for two years of a 4+ ERA from Jose Quintana was ... not great
T5. Christian Yelich to the Brewers for Lewis Brinson, Isan Diaz, Monte Harrison and Jordan Yamamoto (Jan. 2018)
Yelich wasn't a superstar just yet, but he'd still blossomed into a very good player for Miami. Of course, because this is Miami we're talking about, they decided to cut bait a year ahead of his free agency rather than consider paying him — only to watch him immediately win NL MVP honors in Milwaukee. The fact that none of the four players they got in return panned out just makes this even worse; really, it's only down here because we have no faith the Marlins would have contended with Yelich anyway.
T5. Yordan Alvarez to the Astros for Josh Fields (Aug. 2016)
The Dodgers don't misevaluate very often, but Alvarez is one glaring exception. Granted, he wasn't Yordan Alvarez in the summer of 2016; he was a teenager who'd yet to make his Stateside debut and wouldn't start appearing on top prospect lists for another 18 months. And hey, Fields was pretty good for Los Angeles down the stretch. But those mitigating factors only help to keep this from being a world-historic disaster. Imagine is this Dodgers lineup had Shohei Ohtani and Alvarez at the heart of it? We might be talking about a potential five-peat right now.
4. Junior Caminero to the Rays for Tobias Myers (Dec. 2021)
Given everything we laid out above, why do we have this down at No. 4? Well, for starters, Myers really was a respectable prospect at the time, and from a process perspective it's tough to ding Cleveland too much. Plus, the three deals still to come are absolute howlers in a way that even the Caminero heist can't touch.
3. Fernando Tatis Jr. and Erik Johnson to the Padres for James Shields (June 2016)
Tatis Jr. was just 17 years old at the time, just keeping his head above water in his first pro season. Still: What on Earth was Rick Hahn thinking here? It's not like Tatis Jr. was unknown, given his obvious physical tools and his famous big-league father. And there was simply no reason to pull the trigger on such an aggressive move: Chicago sat in third place in the AL Central at 29-27 on the day it was made, and Shields was a 34-year-old who'd pitched to a 4.28 ERA in San Diego. This was inexplicable from the day it was made, and the fact that Tatis Jr. has developed into a superstar just makes it sting all the more.
2. Pete Crow-Armstrong to the Cubs for Javier Baez and Trevor Williams (July 2021)
Speaking of inexplicable! There was no reason to view the 2021 Mets as serious contenders; sure, they had a four-game lead in the NL East on the day this deal was made, but that came with a 55-48 record and a -1 run differential. This was a mediocre team punching slightly above its weight in a bad division, and somehow that was enough to cough up top prospect Crow-Armstrong for two months of Baez. The irony is that Baez held up his end of the deal down the stretch. The Mets did not, collapsing out of the playoffs entirely and condemning themselves to watching PCA's MVP ascent from afar.
1. Mookie Betts to the Dodgers for Jeter Downs, Alex Verdugo and Connor Wong (Feb. 2020)
Even six years later, nothing can top it. It was bad enough that Boston punted on even trying to lock up Betts, a homegrown star who'd just led the team to a World Series title while winning AL MVP honors just one year prior. But getting this in return? That's downright inexcusable, and it felt that way even at the time — this isn't a case of revisionist history. Downs was a top-100 prospect but hardly can't miss; Verdugo was a decent young player but all floor and little ceiling. They burned all their leverage and paid the price, and now Betts is working on a third straight championship in L.A.
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