The Rays can thank the Guardians for their biggest star: How a 'bad trade' sent Junior Caminero to Tampa

Cleveland swapped Caminero for Tobias Myers in a deal that even Guards exec Chris Antonetti admitted was a 'bad trade'

Oct 12, 2026 at 12:30 pm ET • 3 min read

When the ALCS begins Monday night, the deep ties that bind the Cleveland Guardians and Tampa Bay Rays will be on display. Guardians manager Stephen Vogt began his playing career with the Rays, ditto Guardians first baseman Nathaniel Lowe. Rays slugger Yandy Díaz began his career in Cleveland. Relievers Shawn Armstrong and Kevin Kelly have a history with both teams.

Then there's Junior Caminero, Tampa's star third baseman and MVP candidate. Caminero signed with the Guardians as an amateur free agent out of the Dominican Republic in July 2019. Two and a half years later, Cleveland traded him to the Rays for righty Tobias Myers. At the time, Caminero was an 18-year-old in the Dominican Summer League, the lowest rung of the minors.

"That's a bad trade," Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti told MLB.com in 2023, summing up the deal in the only way you can.

The trade was a footnote at the time. Caminero was not yet a top prospect. The trade was completed in November 2021 and it wasn't until 2023 that Caminero ranked among Baseball America's top 30 Rays prospects. It wasn't until 2024 that he was a top 100 prospect in baseball. The Rays identified a very talented, very young player and were able to trade for him before he broke out.

"We just saw a really talented hitter," Rays vice president of player personnel Kevin Ibach said in November 2021, via MLB.com. " ... When you acquire players in the complex leagues, whether it's domestically or internationally, I'd rather be a year early than a year late acquiring that profile. You're not always going to get them right, but when you do, those players make such strides over the course of a calendar year that they may not be accessible a year from now."

Myers, then 23, was a solid prospect who reached Triple-A in 2021. The Rays were not going to add him to their 40-man roster to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft, so, rather than lose him for nothing, they traded him for a lower-minors lottery ticket in Caminero. Similar moves are made at the Rule 5 Draft protection deadline every November. It was a typical minor trade at that time of year.

The Guardians put Myers on their 40-man roster immediately after the trade, but he never did throw a pitch for them. He struggled in Triple-A in 2022, Cleveland designated him for assignment that July, then they traded him to the San Francisco Giants for cash considerations. The Guardians received nothing from Myers. The Caminero trade is a total loss on their end.

I'm inclined to believe that supremely talented players like Caminero will figure it out no matter their surroundings, but we do have to acknowledge that it is no guarantee he would have become this had he remained with Cleveland. Caminero would have worked with different coaches, played with different teammates, climbed the ladder at a different pace, etc. Trades change everything.

The Caminero trade comes with two main takeaways. One, you have to know your players better than everyone else. Self-scouting is important, and considering the Guardians traded Caminero two years into his career for a Triple-A depth arm, it's fair to say they didn't have the best read on him at that point in his career. Projecting teenagers is very hard, but it is essential.

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And two, a bad trade -- a disaster trade, in this case -- doesn't have to sink a franchise. It's baseball. One player can have only so much impact on the game, or even in a postseason series. The Guardians have won four AL Central titles in five seasons since swapping Caminero for Myers, including this year, and they very well might beat him en route to the World Series. 

Smart teams make bad trades all the time, including the Rays. They gave away 2026 All-Star Tristan Peters in December. The three-team Brandon Lowe/Mason Montgomery trade with the Houston Astros and Pittsburgh Pirates has been a stinker. Tampa got basically nothing from the Blake Snell trade with the San Diego Padres. On and on we could go.

The Caminero trade has been franchise-altering for the Rays and a disaster for the Guardians, though not franchise-crippling. Smart teams overcome bad decisions. That's why they're smart teams. Would Cleveland be more formidable with Caminero? Undoubtedly. Are they a really good team without him? Absolutely. Every team makes mistakes. The best overcome them.

"I think one of the things we always continue to do is learn organizationally from both our successes and things that may not have played out the way we had hoped," Antonetti told MLB.com in 2023. "The list is a lot longer than that on opportunities to learn. I think they're all individual circumstances ... Each of those decisions, there's an opportunity to learn."