José Caballero

Note: This page is for infielder José Caballero who made his major league debut in 2023; for others with the same name, click here.

José Manuel Caballero Ortega

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 10", Weight 185 lb.
• School Chipola College
• High School Colegio Manuel María Tejada Roca
• Debut April 15, 2023

• Born August 30, 1996 in Las Tablas, Los Santos Panamá

BR page

Biographical Information

José Caballero played for the Panamanian national team before making his major league debut in 2023.

Caballero hit five homers during the 2017 NJCAA Division I Baseball World Series and was named MVP as Chipola College won the tournament. The Arizona Diamondbacks took him in the 7th round of the 2017 amateur draft, one pick before Nick Maton. The signing scout was Luke Wren.

He hit .319/.378/.467 in his pro debut for the Missoula Osprey, fielding .970 at 2B. He split 2018 between the Hillsboro Hops (.290/.367/.464 in 37 G) and Kane County Cougars (.295/.389/.473 in 33 G), stealing 17 bases in 25 tries overall. He began 2019 with the Visalia Rawhide and was at .268/.388/.396 in 43 games (28 steals in 35 attempts) when he was traded to the Seattle Mariners for starting rotation member Mike Leake. After the deal, he played for the Modesto Nuts (.256/.339/.333, only 4 steals in 9 tries in 23 games) with a brief rehab stint for the AZL Mariners. Despite only spending part of the year with them, he tied Anfernee Grier for second in the D'backs chain in swipes. He tied fellow Panamanian Allen Córdoba for 4th in the California League in steals. He hit only .191/.311/.270 for the Peoria Javelinas in the Arizona Fall League.

The 2020 minor league season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He then missed almost all of 2021 with injury. He saw some action late in the year with the ACL Mariners (.280/.345/.600 in 8 G), Everett AquaSox (5 for 17, 2 2B, 3 BB, 7 R, 3 RBI in 4 G) and Arkansas Travelers (4 for 20, 3 R, 2B, HR, 7 BB, 3 RBI in 8 G) for a composite line of .258/.385/.484 with 16 runs and 15 RBI in 20 games, going 11-for-13 in steals. Peoria again was rough as he batted .224/.308/.293. Playing for the Astronautas de Los Santos in the 2022 Caribbean Series, he was 0 for 4 with two walks and a run. He did score the game-winner in Panama's lone win, versus the Criollos de Caguas. He drew a 9th-inning walk from Alexis Díaz and scored on a hit by Edgar Muñoz.

In 2022, he was with the ACL Mariners (3 for 5, BB, 2 R, RBI) and Arkansas (.227/.440/.330, 20 R, 35 BB, 15 SB, 2 CS in 31 G). He again missed most of the season with injury, a broken hamate bone and a right hand fracture, in his continued rough run of health woes. He appeared for Panama in the 2022 World Baseball Classic Qualifiers. Starting at third base and batting sixth in their opener, he hit a sacrifice fly off Guido Monis in the 2nd to score Jose Ramos with the first run of their opening rout of Argentina. He finished the event 1-for-6, his lone hit coming off Kevin Riello, but Panama cruised to a spot in the 2023 World Baseball Classic for their first World Baseball Classic in 14 years. He then played for Panama in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, going 3 for 13 with a walk, double, three runs and a RBI; only Ramos had more runs for Panama.

He started the 2023 season in AAA with the Tacoma Rainiers, his first time playing at the level due to his numerous injuries. He hit .333 in 10 games with a pair of homers before he got the call to Seattle. In his debut in the Show on April 15th, he came in as a defensive replacement for shortstop J.P. Crawford in the 9th inning of a 9-2 win over the Colorado Rockies and did not get to bat or have a defensive chance. His first at-bat came a day later, when he lined out against the Milwaukee Brewers' Colin Rea. He ended up playing 104 games for Seattle, hitting .221 with 4 homers and 26 RBIs. Defensively, his main position was second base, with 64 games, and he also played 21 times at shortstop and 9 at third base. The best part of his game was on the basepaths, as he was successful on 26 of 29 stolen base attempts.

On January 5, 2024, he was traded to the Tampa Bay Rays in return for OF Luke Raley. The Rays were looking at him as a potential starter at shortstop, in place of Wander Franco, who was unlikely to return to the majors due to ongoing legal problems, while back-up Taylor Walls was recovering from off-season hip surgery and unlikely to be available at the start of the season. He ended up playing 139 games for Tampa Bay, including making 83 starts at shortstop. He hit .227 with 9 homers and 44 RBIs and led the American League in both stolen bases, with 44, and caught stealing, with 16. His OPS+ was just 80, in large part because his OBP tumbled from .343 in his rookie season to an awful .283 (he walked just 27 times in 483 plate appearances, while striking out 133 times).

In 2025, he was again Tampa's most used shortstop in the first four months of the season, and his statistics were pretty much a carbon copy of the year before. In 86 games, he batted .226 with 2 homers and 27 RBIs, for an OPS+ of 80, but he was again leading the AL in stolen bases with 34. On July 31st, he did not start the Rays' game against the New York Yankees, but came in as a defensive replacement at second base in the middle of the 5th inning, only to be replaced in turn by Matt Thaiss in the bottom of the 7th. There was a logical explanation, though, for the apparently purposeless moves, which was that he had just been traded to these same Yankees for minor league OF Everson Pereira as the game was in progress. He was the third infielder acquired by the Yankees in the span of a week, after Ryan McMahon and Amed Rosario, in what seemed like an over-reaction to some recent defensive problems there. On August 19th, in his first game against his former team, played at George M. Steinbrenner Field, he was part of a historic day for the Yankees, as they hit nine homers for the second time that season, tying the franchise record set on March 29th. He contributed to the barrage with the first two-homer game of his career, doubling his season's total as a result, in a 13-3 win. He hit .266 in 40 games for New York, with 3 homers and 9 RBIs for an OPS+ of 131. He also stole another 15 bases in spite of limited opportunities, which allowed him to finish with a league-leading total of 49, his second straight season leading the league in that category. He made his postseason debut that season, going 1 for 4 with a hit by pitch in 3 games over two series.

He played for the Panamanian national team in the 2026 World Baseball Classic, hitting .267/.421/.533 in their 4 games and going deep off Rio Gomez. It was Panama's lone homer of the event and he also led the team in walks (3), RBI (2, tied), steals (2, tied), hits (4, tied), slugging and OPS. He then was the starting shortstop for the Yankees on Opening Day of the 2026 season, March 25th against the San Francisco Giants in Oracle Park. He was starting due to an injury to Volpe, who opened the year on the injured list, and he drove in the first run of the game with a single off Logan Webb in the 2nd inning driving in Giancarlo Stanton (the hit was originally called a double, but downgraded later as Caballero took second on the throw back to the infield). It was also the first RBI of the MLB season by anyone, as that was the only game scheduled that day. Later in the game, in the 4th inning, he became the first batter to activate the ABS Challenge System during a regular season game, appealing a strike call by home plate umpire Bill Miller. The appeal confirmed that Miller had been right all along. The Yankees won the game, 7-0. He started the year slowly with the bat, as he was hitting .186 after 17 games on April 15th, but he went on a tear after that. On May 3rd, he was up to .259 with 5 doubles and 4 homers and was leading the American League with 13 stolen bases, a familiar position for him, while playing very good defense. All of these factors motivated the Yankees' brass not to shake things up when Volpe was eligible to return to the line-up that day: they decided to stick with José and to send Volpe to AAA for the time being.

Notable Achievements

• 2-time AL Stolen Bases Leader (2024 & 2025)

Further Reading

• Adam Berry: "Rays address shortstop need via trade: TB acquires Caballero (Mariners), Palacios (Cardinals) in swaps for Raley, Kittredge", mlb.com, January 5, 2024. [1]
• Adam Berry: "A day after HR robbery, Caballero goes between his legs to start DP", mlb.com, April 19, 2025. [2]
• Bryan Hoch: "'We won ... I guess': Caballero starts game in one dugout, ends it in the other", mlb.com, July 31, 2025. [3]
• Bryan Hoch: "A historic first strike challenge was ... upheld!", mlb.com, May 26, 2026. [4]

Related Sites

• Jose Caballero on mlb.com
• BR Register page