Jays ready to follow Guerrero’s lead into anticipated season

Article content

He’ll stand along the third-base line early Friday evening, watching as the American League championship banner is unveiled, and soaking up the love and celebration from a sold-out crowd at the Rogers Centre.

Article content

“The emotions are going to be there,” Vlad Guerrero Jr. said on Thursday, acknowledging the dawn of one of the most anticipated seasons in Blue Jays franchise history.

Article content

Article content

Where Guerrero will be standing for the gala opening night ceremony is mere feet away from the Blue Jays dugout. It was there, in the wee hours of Nov. 2, that Guerrero was the last player to leave following the heartbreaking 11-inning loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 7 of the World Series.

Instead, he watched the Dodgers celebrate, and digested the confetti flying all around.

“I wanted to see the reality,” Guerrero said earlier in the off-season. “I wanted to see them celebrate. That made me more strong than anything.”

It also made the 27-year-old even more driven to continue his ascent towards being one of the pre-eminent players in the game, a road he has been travelling since he was a teenager.

Article content

This may be the start of the 50th season in Blue Jays history, but it is very much the season of Vlad. It is that in so many ways, starting with the fact that it is officially the first in the 14-year, $500 million US contract he signed last April, a seminal moment that affirmed what many have forecast since he first began swatting baseballs in the Dominican Republic.

“I’ve said it before, this has always been Vladimir’s team,” Jays manager John Schneider said on Thursday prior to the team’s final off-season workout. “He knows how good he is. He knows how people view him. And he’s got the experience to back it up, which he didn’t have before last post-season.”

The hope for the Jays is that the magical playoff run from Guerrero — which his manager called “otherworldly” — will be the engine that recreates more in 2026. There are no guarantees in baseball, but having a star such as Guerrero in the midst of his ascendency skews the odds in a good direction.

Article content

Article content

Even though we’ve seen it for years, didn’t 2025 feel like Guerrero went from prodigy to grown up? An ordinary (by his standards) 23-homer season was followed by eight more bombs in the playoffs, clutch performances with historically high audiences watching around the globe.

If he wasn’t the face of the franchise already, he was by the conclusion, even in defeat. In that magical month, Guerrero not only dazzled the baseball world, he grew up in front of his teammates, who no longer saw him as a prolific hitter, but a leader.

“Vladdy is the perfect franchise player,” Kevin Gausman, Friday’s opening night starting pitcher, said on Thursday. “He does everything the right way. He engages with fans. He loves playing baseball. If you watch him play, it’s every pitch.

Article content

“I think he did an exceptional job last year to take his game to the next level. He’s learned. Vladdy knows he’s the one everyone looks at.”

The “otherworldly” emergence of Vlad

General manager Ross Atkins, just a little more than 11 months removed from handing Guerrero that massive contract, has seen considerable growth since he made his all-star first baseman the richest Jays player ever.

Some of it is subtle. Some of it is performance-based. And some is in the transformation from the talented son of Vlad Guerrero, to a player very much his own man.

“All of the same things that we always celebrate and talk about with Vladdy are the things that come to mind and resonate,” Atkins said on Thursday when he asked him how his superstar has grown in the past year.

Article content

“The joy. The competitiveness. The fire that he plays with. It’s unique to have that level of intensity and joy and talent.

“Watching him on last year’s stage was exceptional, and I think he’s learned and grown from it, as anyone would.”

At the risk of overstating, the post-season truly was the coming out party.

“How to balance intensity, how to deal with expectation, how to deal with really, really high levels of expectation and pressure, and those experiences are powerful,” Atkins said by way of description. “There’s no doubt in my mind that that he has benefited from it.”

From hunters to the hunted

From hunters to the hunted is where the Jays find themselves at the start of the season that opens with six games at home — three each against the Athletics and Colorado Rockies.

Article content

Guerrero and his teammates are well aware that getting back to the World Series, let alone repeating as AL East champions will not come easily.

“We’re not anymore,” Schneider said when asked how he was approaching the challenge of being the “top dog” in the toughest division in baseball. “We were last year.

“I don’t know. Go play. Go win. It’s not going to be easy. People are going to give us their best shot. That’s great. We were the top dog in 2025, right now we’re a half a game behind New York.

“We have to understand what our game is. We know that it matches up against anyone on the planet.”

The challenge will be real, however, especially in an AL East that figures to be tougher than it was a year ago when the Jays and Yankees topped the table with 94 wins apiece.

Article content

Gausman made the point forcefully in spring training, cautioning that they can expect the opposition’s best every night. It’s a dramatically different situation than beginning a season coming off a last-place campaign, as the Jays did a year ago.

“I’ve talked to some guys and told them that we’ve got to be ready for all these teams coming at us, because now all of a sudden we’re one of the top two teams in baseball,” Gausman said. “Any time I’ve ever faced a team that played in the World Series the year before, I knew they were in the World Series the year before. You just try to elevate your game in that situation. That’s the nature of competition, and we have to be ready for that.”

When did Vlad become the man?

As Schneider suggests, it was probably around 2018 when the then 19-year-old was tearing it up for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, setting the stage for a big league debut the following year.

Article content

It hasn’t been overnight success, of course, as it has taken time for Guerrero to grow from a teenager to a world of potential, the 48-homer season in 2021, to some growing pains mixed in with Home Run Derbies and all-star games, and then on to the incredible autumn of 2025.

Perhaps Guerrero really became the man April 9, the date that he signed that big contract, when it was like a weight was lifted off both the player and the franchise.

The Montreal-born, Dominican-raised star free rolled from there, turning superstar potential into a clutch performer on the grandest of stages.

“I think Vlad is just at a different part of his career,” Schneider said. “I think that the world, the baseball world, got to see him as a player, not just as a hitter or guy with a famous name after his Hall of Fame dad. I think the world saw what kind of player he is, and he really embraced that.”

Article content

It is difficult to avoid hyperbole when discussing Guerrero’s post-season and equally as tough not to keep coming back to his performance against the Yankees, Mariners and then the Dodgers.

“There was a different way about him, a different confidence that has carried over into this year,” Schneider said. “So I’m looking for — I don’t want to say a direct carryover (because) he was otherworldly during that post-season. But it’s going to be really important for him and us to find that focus day in and day out.”

Best of all, his teammates felt it, watched it and lived it during the playoffs when Vlad wasn’t just a producer, but a leader. As many players have recounted, early on during the run, he told them if you’re nervous, look to me.

Article content

And Guerrero never flinched.

“When you’re confident in yourself and having fun, it’s a dangerous combination,” Gausman said.

In Vlad’s words

As he has been through much of his career, on Thursday Guerrero was locked in on the now, vowing that he’s moved on from Game 7, as impossible as that likely is to do so completely.

“I’m not thinking of the post-season last year any more,” Guerrero said on the even of the opener. “Obviously it was great. But right now I’m focussed on the season starting (on Friday.)”

That said, Guerrero acknowledged what the past year has meant to him. From signing the long-term deal to entrenching himself as the face of the franchise (and please his family), to the playoff success, to willingly carrying the burden of expectation, he’s in a different place than he ever has been to start an MLB season.

“Definitely, you’re confident,” Guerrero said. “My confidence is at another level, especially when you know that this is going to be home here for a lot of years.

“Not just myself, but my family. When you see that your family is very happy and very comfortable, your confidence level goes way up, especially that you’re going to be playing in front of friends and family for many years.”

Article content