Arquimedes Caminero
| IP | 155.0 |
|---|---|
| ERA | 3.83 |
| WHIP | 1.400 |
| BB/9 | 4.0 |
| SO/9 | 8.3 |
- Full name Arquimedes Euclides Caminero
- Born 06/16/1987 in Santo Domingo Centro, Dominican Republic
- Profile Ht.: 6'4" / Wt.: 245 / Bats: R / Throws: R
- Debut 08/16/2013
Top Rankings
Organization Prospect Rankings
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It's been a long road for Caminero, who spent three years in the Dominican Summer League and finally blossomed in 2010 before losing nearly a year and a half with an elbow injury. Back to full strength in 2013, he held Double-A Southern League hitters to a .183 average and finished the season with 13 big league appearances. Arm strength has always been Caminero's calling card, with a sinking, running fastball that touches triple digits and sits in the mid-90s. He throws a slider that gets sweepy at times and an 89-90 mph cutter that runs in on lefthanders and away from righties. His changeup is a splitter that has room to improve. Caminero's problem has been command. The Marlins suggested some mechanical adjustments in spring 2013 to keep him closed longer and maintain a more consistent arm slot, which allowed his ball to explode late. Even still, it took a stream of constant reminders from his coaches for the importance of throwing quality strikes to sink in. Caminero has matured and gained confidence and no longer lets adversity snowball on him. If he can improve his slider and throw it more consistently for strikes, he has closer stuff. Failing that, he's still got the makings of an aggressive set-up man. -
Caminero was a hot name leading up to the 2009 major league Rule 5 draft, as the Marlins loved his arm but didn't protect him on the 40-man roster. They gambled successfully that he was too raw to stick with a major league club, but they didn't try their luck twice, adding him to the 40-man roster in November. After years of lighting up radar guns, Caminero has started to post results to back up his velocity. Premium arm strength allows him to dial his fastball up to 101 mph, and he typically sits at 95-98 mph. He loves to attack hitters with his fastball, but he needs to develop a consistently effective second pitch. His slider tends to get too big and sweepy or flatten out. He focused on his slider during Florida's minor league minicamp in September and was able to tighten it. Caminero began throwing a splitter in late 2009 to try to combat lefthanders. Command is his biggest problem, because he doesn't repeat his delivery and his arm drops under the ball too frequently. He has trouble maintaining his velocity when he pitches from the stretch. He added a slide step last year to vary his looks with runners on base. The Marlins envision Caminero as a set-up man, and he'd have closer stuff if he could develop a second weapon. After taking six years to graduate from low Class A, he should move faster from this point.
Minor League Top Prospects
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After three years in the Rookie-level Dominican Summer League, Caminero posted a 1.56 ERA in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League in 2008 and earned a taste of the NY-P at the end of that summer. He returned to Jamestown in 2009 and dominated, though he didn't fare as well as Benjamin following a promotion to Greensboro. Caminero is big and physical, and he overpowers hitters with a blazing 95-98 mph fastball. The pitch has explosive life up in the zone. "He's got off-the-charts arm strength," Truby said. "It's just a power fastball, and you can see that his breaking ball is going to get better. It's a power slider and I saw the makings of a good pitch there." Caminero's 85-87 mph slider has good depth and eats up righthanders when he commands it, but his feel for the pitch comes and goes. In his last three outings for Jamestown, he also had success throwing an 82-83 mph changeup to lefties, but it's still a work in progress. He has an aggressive mentality that's well suited for the bullpen, but he struggles with runners on base because his delivery tends to get overly complicated.
Best Tools List
- Rated Best Fastball in the Miami Marlins in 2014
