Way back in July of 2019, former Detroit Tigers GM Al Avila signed 16-year-old Cuban outfielder Roberto Campos to a $2.85 million bonus. At the time, this was the largest payout to an international free agent in the team’s history. Only the $3.2 million they just paid Dominican teenage outfielder Cris Rodriguez this past January has surpassed it. Progress was slow in his first few seasons stateside, but Campos started to put it together at the plate last year in West Michigan, and now faces a tough jump to the Double-A level in 2025.
Despite the fact that he’s been in the system for five years, one has to remember that Campos still won’t turn 22 until mid-June. He’s just reaching the point where the development process starts to develop real urgency. If he has a good year in Double-A he’ll start getting a lot more attention. If not, the clock will starting ticking a little louder.
The combination of contact ability and power the Tigers saw in him as a teenager is still intact but it hasn’t come easily. Overall it was a solid little breakout season at the High-A level last summer. While the pitching will get tougher and much more consistent this year, Campos has shown the ability to steadily develop his game. There’s some reason to be optimistic about his future with the Tigers but it’s fair to say progress has been steady rather than really convincing.
Campos is a little behind the pace of development the Tigers would have hoped for him on signing day, but he’s the same age as many college juniors headed into July’s draft, and is already ready to tackle Double-A. Maybe his year with the Erie SeaWolves will be decisive but his raw power will get him plenty of run particularly considering his age.
Roberto Campos 2022-2024
| Season | PA | wRC+ | K% | BB% | ISO | HR | SB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season | PA | wRC+ | K% | BB% | ISO | HR | SB |
| 2022 (A) | 448 | 103 | 21.7 | 8.9 | 0.127 | 5 | 7 |
| 2023 (A+) | 371 | 98 | 21.8 | 7.5 | 0.139 | 5 | 4 |
| 2024 (A+) | 484 | 120 | 23.1 | 8.5 | 0.153 | 10 | 11 |
As a corner outfielder, the central issue is power production, as you’d expect. Campos initially had a stroke built to hit hard ground balls and line drives rather than launching pitches hard with some loft. He did more damage in 2024 and became a little better low ball hitter, but he was also vulnerable to better stuff and was pretty streaky until settling into a groove in the final third of the season.
Campos has trimmed his ground ball rate from 51.5 percent in 2022 in Low-A, to 47.5 percent in 2023, to 37.2 percent in 2024 as he repeated the High-A level. Most of those ground balls were exchanged for line drives in 2024 as he posted a whopping 29.3 percent line drive rate. Too much of his contact in the air remains weak, but Campos got much closer to the sweet spot between too many grounders and too many routine fly outs and pop-ups. And as the season closed, Campos posted good numbers in August and September, so he was tracking in the right direction.
Campos has slightly above average speed and a pretty good throwing arm that has him tracking toward right field as his full-time position. For now he’s still playing a good amount of center field as well. He has work to do to be an average major league right fielder and has occasionally struggled with his reads. That was clearly an emphasis for improvement in 2024 and he was a much more consistent over the course of the year but he’s still a little below average at this point.
In the end it’s pretty simple, Campos is going to have to prove he can handle better stuff and continue to build on his power production. There’s enough swing and miss in his game to be skeptical. He’s not an OBP machine and he isn’t going to be a major base stealing threat nor an above average defender. He should continue to develop into a solid all around player who can possibly play a minor role at the major league level, but it will take a break out in the power department to really alter that trajectory to the upside.
2025 Outlook
Campos is bound for Double-A Erie this season, and reaching that level at age 21 is pretty good work. He hasn’t turned out to be the next fast-moving future star that the Avila front office hoped, but he’s still on track to be a useful corner outfielder in the years ahead. The improvements in his swing and approach to pull more balls in the air and keep them off the ground marked a nice step in 2024 and looks like sustainable improvement, but now that has to translate against tougher pitching and continue to thrive.
The timetable for international players is pretty tough and Campos is already Rule 5 eligible. if he ends up struggling and needs to repeat Double-A next year his stock would take a hit, but at his age the Tigers would happily be patient with him and give it another year. The most likely scenario for 2025 is that Campos post has a pretty good season in Erie but doesn’t quite blow the doors off the place. The club will then have an interesting decision to make on whether to roster Campos next fall. Best case scenario, he hits a bunch of homers, reaches Triple-A by August, and the Tigers have an option for outfield depth in 2026.