MIAMI – Long before exit velocity provided an accurate measurement of such things, Dante Bichette used to hear third basemen talk about how certain batters made them feel nervous because of how hard the ball came off their bat. The hot corner offers little time for reaction to lasers but as an outfielder, he struggled to relate except when it came to two hitters – Mark McGwire and Vladimir Guerrero. "I’d be uncomfortable standing out in left field," he says with a grin.

These days, the former Colorado Rockies slugger watches from the relative safety of the stands as Vladimir Guerrero Jr., the son of one former nemesis, terrorizes opponents from the batter’s box alongside his youngest son, Bo Bichette. Together, the two teenagers are rapidly developing into the kind of gilt-edged prospects the Toronto Blue Jays can dream of building a future core around. Having already torn through the low-A Midwest League, the dynamic duo made a pit stop Sunday at the Futures Game prospect showcase before they head to advanced-A Dunedin where their next test looms.

"Vladdy’s going to be a really good player," Dante says as he watches the 18-year-old take some rips during batting practice before the U.S. Team edged the World Team 7-6. "He can really hit."

So, too, can 19-year-old shortstop Bo, in a way his dad couldn’t at the same age. Dante entered professional baseball at 20 out of Palm Beach Community College, debuted at low-A Salem and remembers feeling like, "the game was so fast for me."

"I was much rawer than Bo," he continued. "I didn’t have a game-plan. I didn’t know what a real curveball looked like."

The younger Bichette, on the other hand, is already well past the swing development process common to hitters in low-A, instead excelling at pitch recognition and identifying an opponent’s game-plan against him. A .384/.448/.623 slash line with 32 doubles, 10 homers and 28 walks in 70 games at Lansing speaks to that, a level of performance that forced the Blue Jays to bump him up a level sooner than initially planned.

"The quicker you perform, the quicker you want to challenge," says Dante. "They’re moving him to a really tough league – the Florida State League is not an offensive league. That’s good for him and he wants that. He needs that. The trick is you’ve got to see through performance and see if he’s really getting it. Is he hitting with two strikes, is he seeing the breaking ball? He was doing those things."

Guerrero was, too, which is why he’ll be joining Bichette in Dunedin. While the third baseman posted a less video-game-like but still impressive stat line of .316/.409/.480 with 21 doubles, seven homers and 40 walks in 71 games at Lansing, his command of the strike zone is what really stood out, as he struck out only 34 times.

The plate discipline stands in stark contrast to the ways of his father, who "was the type of hitter that would swing at anything," Guerrero said through an interpreter. "I try to wait for my pitch and make sure I get one and then put contact on it."

On Saturday at Marlins Park he worked out with his dad and Hall of Famer Petro Martinez, his godfather, and heard all about the senior Guerrero’s all-star exploits, including an opposite-field homer during the 2006 contest in Pittsburgh and a home run derby win in 2007 at San Francisco.

But Guerrero is trying to carve out his own identity, independent of his father’s career which is expected to be recognized with a place in Cooperstown, perhaps next summer. He collected a pair of singles and scored twice in four at-bats for the World Team, fitting in among baseball’s best prospects despite his youth.

"He likes that I am a different hitter than him because he has his game and I have my game," says Guerrero. "I have my way."

Bichette, whose dad pounded out 274 homers and posted an OPS of .835 over 14 big-league seasons, does too, earning a notice that extends well beyond his last name.

"For both of us, we want to be the best players we are capable of being and that comes with the territory with having them as our fathers," he says. "We both want to be our own guy and carve our own way. It’s been good for both of us to have the success we’ve had so far."

The two are bonded by the shared of experience of being young men learning to live on their own in the professional baseball world, growing up with big-league fathers, developing elite abilities and united in their aspirations to star for the Blue Jays.

"We talk about how we’re going to play together hopefully for a long time. We both would love that," says Bichette. "We always say let’s push each other and help each other out because we’re going to play together for a long time. We definitely think about it."

Bichette entered the Futures Game in the fifth inning in place of Twins prospect Nick Gordon and lined out to right in his first at-bat before striking out against Tigers lefty Jairo Labourt, a former Blue Jays prospect part of the package for David Price, in his second trip up.

It was one of the rare games this year in which he didn’t dominate.

"I let Bo lead all conversations," the senior Bichette says of doling out advice. "I’ve learned that if I’m telling him, it doesn’t stick. If he’s asking, it sticks. He’s always got an ear, he’s always listening. If you talk to him in depth about how you would go about hitting this pitcher, you’d be like, holy, he’s way ahead of his years.

"He’s fun to watch. I’ve been impressed with him."

He’s far from the only one.