Junior Caminero Is the WBC’s Early Breakout Star

The young Dominican Republic slugger hit 45 home runs last year with the Rays, but his fame is hitting a new level in the World Baseball Classic.

Dominican Republic third baseman Junior Caminero celebrates hitting a home run against Nicaragua. | Rich Storry/Getty Images

Welcome to Verducci’s View, a new weekly baseball newsletter from Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci. Every Monday, Tom will empty out his notebook and cover MLB’s hottest topics, provide in-depth analysis through both text and video breakdowns, look forward to what’s worth watching during the week and more. This week, we start with a star being born before our eyes.

MIAMI — The WBC has its early breakout star: Rays third baseman Junior Caminero of the Dominican Republic.

Wait, you say. The dude hit 45 homers last season in his age-21 season. Only Eddie Mathews ever hit more at that age. Yes, of course. But Caminero played for a 77-win team in a minor league ballpark. This month amid a lineup with four of the eight highest paid players ever (by total value) and games that are uber intense, Caminero has stood out as an emotional and offensive force who commands your attention. 

Amid his highlights, he has slugged two home runs with these ridiculous aerospace telemetry numbers:

• A 1-iron of a blast smashed at 111.6 MPH with a 19-degree launch angle. Only 23 homers were hit in the majors last year that hard and that low—or 0.4%.
• A missile measured at 115.8 mph, his hardest hit home run as a big leaguer.

Want to know what’s even scarier? Listen to Albert Pujols, his manager with the Dominican team who also managed him in the 2024–25 winter league season.

“He moves his body too much,” Pujols said of Caminero’s swing. “I tell him, ‘The pitchers don’t have anything to get you out.’ Right now, though, you leave him alone. Once he does not chase so much and makes adjustments with his swing to have less movement, he’s going to be something special. He’s still learning. A couple of years from now, you’re going to see a different guy.”

Whoa. Caminero already has the second fastest bat speed in the sport (behind his Dominican teammate, Oneil Cruz). He loves the big moments, as he proved with his tie-breaking Game 7, ninth-inning, 454-foot blast to win the 2025 Dominican winter league and his tie-breaking homer against Nicaragua.

He is also a bundle of energy, the team’s lead cheerleader who told Pujols he would sign up to play on the Dominican team even as the water boy. And he is a dedicated sort who spent most of the 2024–25 offseason training in Tampa and improving his English with the idea of becoming a better team leader.

It’s crazy to think the Guardians traded a bat like this at age 18 after one Dominican Summer League season for pitcher Tobias Myers. Less than a year later, the Guardians sold Myers to the Giants. Myers has since bounced from the Giants to the White Sox to the Brewers to the Mets.

Where does Caminero go from here? He has 52 homers and a .504 slugging percentage through age 21. Only a dozen other players have done that—none of them flukes. The player he most resembles with his ferocious, flat swing is Giancarlo Stanton:

Through 204 Games	Age	Home Runs	RBI	AVG	OBP	SLG
Stanton	21	47	126	.258	.328	.518
Caminero	21	52	135	.260	.307	.504

Caminero has only one year, 58 days of service time. He and catcher Austin Wells, both of whom figure to make about $800,000 this year, are the only players in the Dominican lineup not playing on a long-term, eight- or nine-figure deal. He never needs to worry about picking up a check over these two weeks. But after two games, Caminero is the star of stars on the most entertaining team in the WBC.

Pitching disparity

Dominican Republic left fielder Juan Soto celebrates after hitting a home run against the Netherlands. | Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

The Dominican team through three games has outscored its opponents 34–5 and has almost as many home runs (9) as strikeouts (13). That lineup is as good as advertised, but ... pool play exposes how short are many of these teams with pitching.

The walk numbers are ridiculous for the offenses of the top teams: 25 in three games for Japan, 24 in two games for the USA and 29 in three games for the Dominican Republic.

Through Sunday afternoon, WBC games averaged 8.96 walks per game, a 42% jump from the MLB regular season average of 6.32.

On Sunday, the Dominicans hit four home runs—all on pitches below 89 mph.

Dominican Republic HRs vs. The Netherlands	Pitch	MPH	MLB Average
Juan Soto	Slider	85.4	86.1
Austin Wells	Four-seam	86.8	94.5
Junior Caminero	Sinker	88.5	93.8
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.	Curveball	77.5	79.6

Quote of the Week

The Seattle Mariners have never played in the World Series. Last year they came closer than ever, losing a lead in Game 7 of the ALCS to Toronto. But if you want to know what playing for country in the WBC means in the heart of these players, listen to Julio Rodriguez, center fielder for the Mariners and the Dominican Republic, on what means more: winning the World Series or the WBC:

“Of course, I work in Seattle, and I try to do my best every time I go out to the field. But every time that I wear the Dominican jersey, I'm representing my country, my neighborhood, my city, my culture, and that's priceless. That's priceless. ... I believe that if I go to the World Series, 90 percent is ...  I would say 99 percent. But this Classic is 100 percent. This is what I feel.”

WBC Odds and Ends

Nicaragua manager Dusty Baker argues with umpires during Saturday’s game against the Netherlands. | Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

• Dominican Republic general manager Nelson Cruz could be using the WBC as a springboard to a major league front office job. Cruz, an advisor with the Dodgers since November of 2023 and a consultant to MLB, wants to become a major league general manager. It’s not often you see someone as accomplished a player as Cruz work toward a front office role—he hit 484 homers over 19 seasons—but the game is circling back toward more players in decision-making front office roles, including Buster Posey of the Giants, Chris Getz of the White Sox, Craig Breslow of the Red Sox, Chris Young of the Rangers and Jerry DiPoto of the Mariners. 
• It was like watching a hilarious old home movie to see The Netherlands try to intentionally walk a Nicaragua batter, a practice that went out of favor years ago in favor of the time-saving automatic intentional walk. Catcher Chadwick Tromp stood outside the catching box before his pitcher was even set—a clear rules violation that should have been a balk. Nicaragua manager Dusty Baker protested wildly. The home plate umpire, a non-MLB umpire from Australia, had no idea what was going on. Neither did The Netherlands, who should have just announced the walk. The farce, both unnecessary and illegal, repeated for a second pitch. Baker argued even more. Finally, the umpires ordered the batter to go to first. You see weird stuff in these WBC games.
• Luis Severino looked good Sunday with his new delivery. He is staying over the rubber longer and generating more power. His velocity is up a tick from last season. 
• Cool moment in the Netherlands’ clubhouse after the walkoff win on the Ozzie Albies home run Saturday: outfielder Dru Jones presented the game ball to his father, Andruw, upon his first managerial victory. Veteran reliever Kenley Jansen then gave a heartfelt speech thanking Jones and underscoring how important the win was for the Kingdom of the Netherlands. 
• Dodgers and Team Japan right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto had a higher average four-seam velocity in his WBC start (96.0) than in any month among the first five months of last season. Just a reminder that it’s March—after Yamamoto made 35 starts and one Game 7 relief appearance last year
• Fernando Tatis Jr. looks locked in. He has been an on-base machine who refuses to swing at anything out of the zone. Padres manager Craig Stammen should not think of hitting him anywhere but leadoff. 
• Pretty cool that Juan Soto told Pujols he did not want to come out of the game Sunday in a blowout. He told his manager he wanted to stay in so he could end it—and did with a mercy-rule walkoff homer.

Breakdown of the Week

Velocity gets pitchers to the big leagues. Spin and shaping help keep them there. Logan Gilbert of the Seattle Mariners is one of those examples. Gilbert’s four-seam/split, north/south attack mode has diversified with more spin and east/west movement. The change began in his 2024 breakthrough season, when he adjusted his windup to add more shoulder turn, added a cutter and lowered his arm slot. Like many pitchers these days, he has turned his four-seamer from a foundational pitch into just another side dish on the menu:

Logan Gilbert Pitch Use	Sliders/Cutters	Four-Seamers	Vertical Release
2023	29.6%	41.7%	6.20
2024	42.8%	30.7%	5.83
2025	35.4%	36.3%	5.76
2026	35.4%	31.5%	6.23

That last column caught my attention this spring. Gilbert, who missed seven starts last season with a flexor strain, has returned to his higher arm slot. He also has brought back the cutter and experimented with a sinker.

The one risk Gilbert runs is overdoing the pitch selection game. The danger is allowing pitches to bleed into one another rather than honing their uniqueness.

The main assignment for Gilbert this spring should be to get the command back on his slider, his favorite pitch from 2024. Gilbert’s slider went from an elite pitch in ’23 and ’24 to a below average pitch in ’25, even though he threw it more.

Why the decline? Command. Check out the heat maps on his slider over the past two seasons. You can see how the pitch in 2025 hung more often higher and in the middle of the plate, leading to a lot more slug:

MLB

	2023	2024	2025
Use	29.6%	32.3%	35.3%
MPH	88.7	88.4	87.5
SLG	.349	.385	.510
Run Value	16	14	-1

Tom’s TV Desk

WBC Quarterfinal: March 14 @ Miami, 9 p.m., Fox: Pool C winner vs. Pool D runner-up.

Welcome to the knockout round. Japan will play the runner-up from Pool D—likely either the Dominican Republic or Venezuela. Those two teams square off Wednesday in the probable pool-deciding game. The winner gets the Pool C runner-up (Australia, Korea or Chinese Taipei). The loser gets Japan.

Yamamoto vs. either the Dominican or Venezuelan lineup? Sign me up.

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