In Lansing, in Dunedin, in New Hampshire, in Buffalo and in Toronto, they’ve stood alongside one another. From All-Star Games to magazine covers, from prospect lists to the World Series, it’s been Vladdy and Bo. Never just Vladdy, never just Bo.
Eventually, real life catches up to boyhood dreams. The Blue Jays are one win away from their first World Series title since 1993. Perhaps Bichette is one game away — just a few more at-bats — from the end of his Blue Jays career, but let’s not think about that just yet. Those boyhood dreams are still outrunning reality, just an inch out of its grasp.
For years, the two have said they want to win together, to bring championships back to Toronto. That’s “championships” with an ‘s’ at the end.
For years, the Blue Jays have retooled and reloaded and pivoted, but since 1993, they’ve never had an opportunity like this. Guerrero and Bichette were the great hope coming out of those 2015 and ‘16 runs which fell just short. They had famous last names, some style and enough talent to make that 67-win season in ‘19 go down with barely a grimace. They felt so rare then, these two kids that wanted to dream big together, and they still do.
“Vladdy is one of my best friends. We’ve had tons of conversations like that,” Bichette said in the early days of spring. “We’ve talked about playing together forever since he was 18 and I was 19. That’s still a goal of ours.”
It still is, even with Guerrero’s 14-year, $500 million deal kicking in next year and Bichette facing an uncertain future as one of the top position players available in free agency. The Blue Jays have already proven they have the ability to spend, though, and going to the World Series with a national market putting up mind-boggling TV numbers doesn’t exactly lose you money.
Whether this is the end or another beginning, that doesn’t matter right now. This is an arrival.
This is what Guerrero and Bichette have been working towards since they first played together in Lansing, Mich., with the Single-A Lugnuts. They’ve always been connected, and now here they are together in the World Series with manager John Schneider, who’s been along for the ride since Double-A.
Schneider has been fighting for these two since they were teenagers. After the 2017 season, the Blue Jays were strongly considering sending both Bichette and Guerrero back to High-A Dunedin to open the season. Schneider, who was managing the Double-A New Hampshire team in that ‘18 season, walked into Toronto’s complex one day that spring and found Gil Kim, then the director of player development.
“I walked to his office,” Schneider remembered, “and I said, ‘Send them with me. I will not [expletive] this up.’”
He didn’t. Here they all are together. To have started with just one of them would have been enough, but both of them together? That was special.
“I always tried to take a step back once a week with [Vladdy]. He was not a normal No. 1 prospect,” Schneider said in a 2024 interview for ‘The Franchise: Toronto Blue Jays.’ “Watching him take BP, listening to him talk about hitting, you could just tell. It was so weird because I had him and Bo together … and they were just better than everyone else. They were just better. What Vladdy could do with the bat, I realized that’s something you only see once every 20 years. It was just different than anything I’d ever seen.”
Guerrero, always the transcendent talent and life of the party. Bichette, always the serious one, stubbornly working and working.
“He wanted to kick your ass in ping pong,” Schneider said. “I think he gets overshadowed because he was quieter and not as outgoing as Vlad, but that was another situation where I had to step back and go, ‘OK, I’ve got two of these guys on my team? This is [freaking] crazy.’ If it was just one of them, it would be crazy, but two?”
The time will come to talk about the future and it will come soon. That could come next week, once a parade is over and once the haze of a World Series celebration finally clears. That’s up to the Blue Jays.
Bichette’s answer has been the same all along, though. Besides, so little has changed. It’s always been about Vladdy and Bo in Toronto. They want it to stay that way.
“I’ve been here my entire career and worked really hard to build a winning culture — not alone, of course, with some people that are really close to me,” Bichette said earlier in the postseason. “So, I’ve said it before, my goal is to stay here for my entire career, but right now, I don’t have time to think about that. I’ve got to go out there and do everything I can to help the team win.”
They’ve done everything together. They’ve grown from prospects into big leaguers, from boys into men. All that’s left together is to become World Series champions.
