The Toronto Blue Jays have been blessed with talented\u00a0duos leading the way before, such as\u00a0Carlos Delgado with\u00a0Vernon Wells and\u00a0Jose Bautista alongside\u00a0Edwin Encarnacion.<\/p>\n
However, when those star duos were separated, it didn’t include a player leaving Toronto in his prime, which is what just happened with Bo Bichette.<\/p>\n
Within 24 hours, the Jays lost both Kyle Tucker<\/a> and Bichette<\/a> to other teams in free agency.<\/p>\n While Tucker was the flashier target, the loss of a homegrown star like Bichette shouldn’t be overstated.<\/p>\n Back in 2019, it looked like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bichette would potentially lead Toronto to the promised land, and they almost accomplished that in 2025.<\/p>\n Now, Guerrero Jr. will have to do that without his longtime friend and star teammate.<\/p>\n For the first time since Bichette signed with the Mets, Guerrero Jr. spoke about losing his friend to the New York Mets.<\/p>\n “Of course, I feel sad after playing with him for so many years,” Guerrero Jr. told Sportsnet’s Hazel Mae.<\/a>\u00a0“But like I’ve always said, this is a business, and you have to look out for what’s best for you and your family.”<\/p>\n “I wish him the best,” he said. “We won’t be teammates anymore, but our friendship will last forever.”<\/p>\n Bichette echoed a similar sentiment when speaking to Mae back in September<\/a> about his relationship with Toronto’s highest-paid player.<\/p>\n “It’s probably the strongest it’s ever been (our friendship),” Bichette said. “We both have struggled, and we both have handled it well from a personal relationship standpoint. There’s even more respect now as human beings with how we’ve dealt with adversity, and how we’ve overcome it.”<\/p>\n It’s easy to see why both players were drawn to each other. Both\u00a0had the commonalities of being tasked with rescuing the Jays’ franchise from mediocrity, and they both had the backdrop of growing up around fathers who played in the MLB.<\/p>\n Just over a year ago, Bichette said that his goal was to play with Guerrero Jr. for the entirety of his career.<\/p>\n “My ultimate goal really is to play with Vladdy (Guerrero Jr.) forever, to win a championship with him and to do that with this organization,” Bichette told Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi<\/a>\u00a0back in Sept. 2024.<\/p>\n Despite their undeniable friendship, clearly something changed between Bichette and the Blue Jays since expressing his desire to be a Blue Jay for life.<\/p>\n Lead photo by <\/p>\n Jonathan Dyer\/Imagn Images<\/p>\n