BUFFALO, N.Y. — Altagracia Alvino, mother to Vladimir, grandmother to Vladimir Jr., has changed addresses a few times over the last couple years. Bluefield, West Virginia. Dunedin, Florida. Lansing, Michigan. Manchester, New Hampshire.
And now, Buffalo, New York. Just like she did for her son when he was putting together a hall-of-fame career with the Montreal Expos and Los Angeles Angels, the matriarch of the Guerrero family has followed her grandson everywhere he’s gone, living with him, cooking meals for his teammates, doing laundry — you know, grandmother stuff.
“If I moved to China,” Guerrero Jr. says, “she’ll follow me to China.”
A stop in Asia is unlikely, but it’s almost certain Altagracia’s next move will in fact be international as Guerrero has joined the triple-A Buffalo Bisons, only one level below the Toronto Blue Jays.
Of course, Guerrero probably won’t arrive in Toronto until sometime during the 2019 season, considering his continued development, the realities of major-league service time, and the current inconsequential nature of the Blue Jays’ 2018 campaign. But that’s a discussion for another day.
For now, Guerrero will face the toughest test of his professional career, playing in a league where the average age is more than seven years his senior. Over the remaining five weeks of the International League season, he’ll bat third for the Bisons, playing mostly third base with some starts as a designated hitter mixed in.
Before games, he’ll continue to send his time working to improve his defence, and his conditioning as well. Guerrero missed five weeks earlier this season with a strained patellar tendon in his right knee. The Bisons training staff will surely keep a close eye on his workload, and how his body responds to each game.
And through every test, he’ll endeavor to prove to the Blue Jays front office that he’s up to the task.
“I just need to come here and do my job, put up my numbers, and do the best I can,” he said through interpreter Rafael Dubois, a Venezuelan mental performance coach with the Bisons. “I can’t think in the future. I think in the moment. I just need to focus on doing my job and doing the things I need to do here.”
It’s hard to envision that not happening. To this point, the game of baseball has yet to present Guerrero with much of a challenge.
In 2016, he put up an .808 OPS over his first 62 professional games as a 17-year-old in rookie ball. Last season, he drew a walk 14 more times than he struck out, while putting up a .323/.425/.485 line over 119 games between mid- and high-A. This season he arrived at double-A and through only 61 games hit 14 homers, drove in 60, and posted a 1.120 OPS while notching upwards of four times more multi-hit games, 31, than hitless games, 7. He’s played 65 games in all this season and failed to reach base in only three of them.
The statistics are ridiculous — they truly are. Across the game, you can find plenty of scouts and evaluators who will tell you Guerrero could put up similarly impressive numbers in the majors today. But for a 19-year-old whose days as a child began on the field at 6 a.m. and involved north of 500 swings a day, none of it is unexpected.
“This is what I work every year for. When I go to the Dominican Republic, I go there to prepare myself for a long season. That’s what I work for — to prepare myself to hit and to do my job,” he said. “I don’t get surprised by this.”
That includes the ravenous attention that follows him everywhere he goes, and will only intensify over the time he spends in upstate New York.
At 2:00 p.m. Tuesday, Guerrero emerged from the dugout tunnel leading to the Bisons clubhouse, his amber-tipped dreadlocks tucked beneath a baby blue cap. He stepped into a phalanx of more than two dozen media members, and answered an endless stream of shouted questions for 15 straight minutes, many of them a variation on the same theme.
People already want to see you in Toronto, what would be a best case scenario for you over the next few months?
What would you say to Blue Jays fans about the future of the team?
How much can you appreciate being closer to Toronto?
Would you like to be up with the Jays by the end of the season?
And every time, he gave a different version of the same, understandable response.
“The only thing I can say is I control what I can control. The only thing I can do is go out to the field and give the best I can give,” he said. “If I’m here, I’m going to do my job here. If I’m up there, I’m going to do my job up there.”
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Buffalo’s manager, Bobby Meacham, got the same treatment moments after his new third baseman departed. He spoke eloquently and thoughtfully about the tasks ahead for Guerrero, and the demands that come with being a player of his calibre and pedigree, one many are expecting to do incredible things. He said that with that great talent and potential, comes great notice.
“I like to say, if you’re confident in your abilities and you believe in yourself, and you know deep down that you should be here, that that’s just going to come with it,” Meacham said. “I think he expected this to come with it. He knows what his dad went through. He’s seen big league situations all through his life. And this is just part of what he has to go through right now. All the attention, he’s earned it.”
And, remember, Meacham spent his big league career with the New York Yankees in the mid 1980s. He knows as well as anyone this is nothing compared to what Guerrero will encounter if he turns out to be as successful as many believe he can be.
“I saw a lot of reporters in a lot of different places for a lot of different reasons. We had Mattingly and Winfield going for a batting title. We had pennant races every year,” Meacham said. “Man, you look at the internet now — or newspapers then — he’s hitting .400 in double-A. So, everybody’s kind of been anticipating this.”
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Fans, too. When the gates opened at 4:00 p.m., dozens of spectators rushed down the rows between the green seats at Coca-Cola Field, lining up along a railing that runs up the right-field foul line. They hung over the barricade, watching Guerrero stretch with his new teammates, play catch, and practice celebratory handshakes.
When he moved to the infield to participate in fielding drills, the fans followed, as did a pack of camera operators and photographers who documented his every breath. Batting practice was a similar zoo, as the hordes watched Guerrero drive pitches to all fields. When he was finished, he signed a few autographs, jogged into the dugout to collect his equipment, and walked back to the clubhouse like he’s done before so many games before.
Within that clubhouse, Guerrero’s presence can already be felt. Altagracia’s, too. She sent her grandson to the ballpark Tuesday with containers of chicken to offer his new teammates. Later that night, he’ll sit with her at a table and recap his day, running down everything that happened in that night’s game. It’s their routine. From Bluefield, to Lansing, and now to Buffalo.
“I don’t feel any pressure. I just try to get better every day. I just try to do my job, to do the things that I need to do every day in order to get better,” Guerrero said. “I just need to be here, control what I can control, do my job — and that’s about it.”
