Last winter, Junior Caminero helped the Leones del Escogido win the LIDOM championship and a berth in the Caribbean Series with a single, memorable swing of the bat.
And though he didn’t play in Mexicali with the Leones, as he was preparing for his first full season with Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays, Escogido went on to claim the 2025 Caribbean Series title with a 1-0 win over the Charros de Jalisco of the Liga ARCO Mexicana del Pacifico.
Caminero revealed this week that he intends to return to the Leones this winter from day one, according to a report from ESPN’s that has reverberated through the Dominican baseball community.
In his first full season with the Rays, Caminero has hit 44 homers and driven in 108 runs, becoming just the fourth player in MLB history to hit 40 or more homers in his first full season, joining Mark McGwire, Aaron Judge, and Pete Alonso. Caminero was named an American League All-Star, participated in the Home Run Derby and will likely receive consideration in the balloting for the AL MVP award. He is not eligible for the 2025 AL Rookie of the Year award as he appeared in 43 games with Tampa Bay in 2024.
Prior to becoming the Rays’ everyday third baseman, Caminero has played two winter league seasons with Escogido, appearing in 21 regular season games in 2023-24 where he went 29-for-87 with five homers and 15 RBIs, and in 10 games in 2024-25, he went 14-for-33 with four RBIs.
Photo: Junior Caminero celebrates his three-run home run against the Houston Astros during the eighth inning of a baseball game Saturday, May 31, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/Eric Christian Smith)
