ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Junior Caminero’s first Yankees tie runs all the way back to a family room in the Dominican Republic, where a six-year-old kid watching a 2009 New York powerhouse helped name his baby brother.
At the time, the Yankees were loaded with Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and CC Sabathia and rolling through a championship season. Caminero’s parents were focused on a different problem: finding a name for their unborn son.
His mother, a physical therapist who was pregnant then, and his truck-driver father were stuck. Caminero offered a solution.
He suggested Girardi, after Yankees manager Joe Girardi.
Fifteen years later, the Rays’ All-Star third baseman explained the story of how his little brother ended up as Girardi Caminero.
“When he was born, the Yankees were really popular in that moment,” said Caminero, whose Rays begin a best-of-five Division Series with the Yankees on Saturday night. “We were watching Yankees games and Joe Girardi was the manager at that time.
When he was about to be born, my parents were talking about what do we want to name the baby. What do we want to name him?
“I kind of threw it out there and said, ‘Why not Girardi?’ That’s where the story comes from.”
That’s the quirky part. The baseball part is even more dramatic.
Before the Indians became the Guardians, Caminero signed with Cleveland three days before his 16th birthday on July 2, 2019 for $87,500. Two years later, he still hadn’t gotten past rookie ball and wasn’t showing up on prospect lists.
Then, in November 2021, the Rays were looking for a trade partner while trying to clear room on their 40-man roster for a Triple-A pitching prospect. They believed right-hander Tobias Myers would be exposed in the Rule 5 draft if he wasn’t protected, so they started searching for a younger player who wouldn’t need that protection.
Cleveland offered Caminero.
At the time, he was a rookie-league third baseman with right-handed power and elite bat speed, but no obvious path to the majors in Cleveland with switch-hitting All-Star Jose Ramirez already in place at third base.
Tampa Bay didn’t know it was landing a future star. MLB Pipeline didn’t rank Caminero among the Rays’ top 30 prospects in 2021, and he only reached No. 30 the following year.
By 2023, he was up to No. 5.
In 2024, he climbed to No. 1 in the organization and No. 4 on MLB’s top 100, behind Jackson Holliday, Jackson Chourio and Paul Skenes.
The rise kept coming. Caminero reached the majors in 2024 after beginning the season at High-A.
Last year, he hit 45 home runs, one shy of Carlos Pena’s franchise record. This season, he added 41 more, becoming only the second player to post two 40-homer seasons by age 22, joining Eddie Mathews, who did it in 1954 and 1955.
“Junior is a special player, special teammate,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “He’s been incredible and I would expect that just as he’s done every single stop throughout his career, whether it’s playing winter ball or coming up.”
Now comes his first postseason game, and it arrives Saturday night in a Division Series against the Yankees. Caminero said the moment is exactly what he’s been waiting for.
“I feel great,” he said. “The moment’s here.
We’ve been talking about this all year long. Now everybody on the team is ready and I’m here to impact the team in whatever way I can.”
And despite the family connection, Caminero said he wasn’t really pulling for New York when he came up with his brother’s name.
“Not necessarily,” he said. “In that moment, the Yankees were really popular, especially with the Boston/New York rivalry, so I watched a lot of games in the Dominican as a little kid, whoever was on.
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