John Romano: You gotta love Junior. You also need to pay Junior one of these days.

John Romano, Tampa Bay Times on Nov 4, 2026

Published in Baseball

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TAMPA, Fla. — Here’s an interesting, and slightly unnerving, thought as we head into baseball’s offseason:

The Rays have Wander Franco under control longer than they have Junior Caminero.

On the one hand, it’s a meaningless distinction since Franco’s MLB career seems to be heading toward a cliff due to his legal problems in the Dominican Republic. The fact that he’s signed through at least 2032 doesn’t mean a whole lot since the Rays stopped paying him once he went on baseball’s restricted list in 2024.

But it does put into perspective the ticking clock on Caminero’s time in Tampa Bay.

OK, relax. No need to panic or get hysterical. Unless the upcoming labor negotiations dramatically change baseball’s rules for service time and free agency, Caminero is tied to the Rays through the end of the 2030 season. And that doesn’t include the possibility that the Rays sign him to an extension before then.

Still, the Caminero timeframe is worth contemplating for a couple of reasons.

No. 1, the business model in Tampa Bay is not based on longevity. For the most part, players either leave via free agency (Carl Crawford, B.J. Upton), are traded before they are eligible for free agency (David Price, Willy Adames) or are traded after signing extensions (Evan Longoria, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Ben Zobrist, James Shields).

The Franco contract was supposed to be the exception to that philosophy based on his enormous talent and young age, but we all know what happened there.

No. 2, when dealing with long contract terms for controllable players, the deals are typically signed very early in a player’s career. Sometimes, even before they reach the majors. Think about the hottest young stars in the game today. Jackson Chourio? Already has an eight-year deal in Milwaukee. Kevin McGonigle? A nine-year deal in Detroit. JJ Wetherholt? An eight-year deal in St. Louis. Pete Crow-Armstrong? A six-year deal in Chicago. Bobby Witt Jr.? A seven-year deal in Kansas City.

Franco was 20 years old when he signed his 11-year deal with the Rays, and Longoria agreed to a six-year deal on the day he was called up to the majors.

With 94 career home runs and a bunch of MVP votes in his hip pocket, Caminero has already morphed from prospect to superstar at age 23. The incentive to sign an undervalued deal — which provides guaranteed wealth today while potentially leaving money on the table for tomorrow — has been lessened by his success.

So where does that leave the Rays and Caminero when it comes to a multi-year extension?

“These are things that publicly we’re never really going to get into or address,” baseball operations president Erik Neander said Tuesday. “Our thoughts on Junior, his importance to our franchise — not just last year and the 2026 season but beyond — he’s as critical a player to our success as we have.

“This is a player I never ever want to let go of and as we go along, hopefully that’s the way it plays out. So, yeah, not going to get into details about the particulars but it’s not lost on us what kind of, not just talent we have, but what kind of character we have, what kind of professional we have, what kind of drive Junior has within him to not be satisfied with the two unbelievable seasons that he’s had.”

While the Rays are reluctant to talk about it out loud, there could be a lot of reasons why Caminero did not sign a long-term deal like many of his contemporaries. The Rays were in the middle of an ownership change when he had his breakthrough season in 2025. The new owners have been focused on getting a deal for a new stadium in Tampa and the potential revenues that could bring in. The uncertainty of the Franco contract situation has also been looming over the front office for three-plus years.

Granted, the team now has some ballpark certainty, and the Franco contract is looking more and more like it will simply fade into the background. But the window of opportunity for an early deal to give Caminero some guaranteed wealth while providing the Rays with cost-certainty may have already passed.

At this point, it’s more likely that the two sides keep the lines of communication going while seeing where Caminero’s career heads. With four more years of control, the Rays could get two relatively cheap seasons out of Caminero and then reassess after 2028.

It’s certainly a gamble. If Caminero continues on his trajectory, he could be looking for a contract that would be among the biggest in the game, and that’s not a place that the Rays have occupied in the past. In that scenario, it would not be surprising if the Rays begin exploring a trade with the idea that a new team would have one to two years of control of Caminero while trying to get him signed long term.

In a strange way, it’s kind of what Rays fans should hope for. The idea that Caminero increases his stock to the point that Rays ownership will either be looking at the most expensive contract in team history or a blockbuster trade for Tampa Bay’s next generation of stars.

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