Six Scots have been included in the initial 24-strong GB Women's Sevens squad for Tokyo 2020 after none made the final cut for the Rio 2016 squad.

Chloe Rollie, Helen Nelson, Megan Gaffney, Rhona Lloyd, Hannah Smith and Lisa Thomson, who are also part of Scotland's 15-a-side team for the Six Nations, all make the cut.

England's Emily Scarratt, who led Great Britain to a fourth place in Rio, is absent as she focuses on 15-a-side, but Abbie Brown, Heather Fisher and Amy Wilson Hardy all return.

Three Welsh women - Keira Bevan, Hannah Jones and Jasmine Joyce - are also included.

Joyce was the only non-English player in the final 13 for Rio four years ago.

A 13-player squad for this year's Olympics will be named in July.

"I have been able to spend a decent amount of time with the English players and staff in their environment.

"With them being the one full-time squad competing on the World Series, this has been invaluable for me to get to know them better," said head coach Scott Forrest, who also coaches Scotland's women.

"I obviously know the Scotland Sevens team very well and I have had some good conversations with Ollie Philips as well, since his appointment as Wales Women's Sevens coach."

The squad will go through three training camps, with the first taking place in Edinburgh this week before others in Wales and England in April.

Should they make the final squad, Scotland's women will face a short turnaround before a qualifying tournament for women's Rugby World Cup in September.

Great Britain's women's sevens training squad

Holly Aitchison (England)

Keira Bevan (Wales)

Abbie Brown (England)

Abi Burton (England)

Heather Fisher (England)

Deborah Fleming (England)

Megan Gaffney (Scotland)

Sydney Gregson (England)

Hannah Jones (Wales)

Meg Jones (England)

Jasmine Joyce (Wales)

Ellie Kildunne (England)

Rhona Lloyd (Scotland)

Alex Matthews (England)

Helen Nelson (Scotland)

Jodie Ounsley (England)

Celia Quansah (England)

Chloe Rollie (Scotland)

Helena Rowland (England)

Hannah Smith (Scotland)

Lisa Thomson (Scotland)

Emma Uren (England)

Beth Wilcock (England)

Amy Wilson Hardy (England)

PETALUMA, Calif. – The Racers Group is set to launch the SRO GT4 America season with a strong lineup of dedicated drivers and a returning sponsor.

The three 2019 Porsche GT4 Clubsport MRs will compete in two classes: Sprint and SprintX. Spencer Pumpelly, Dr. Jim Rappaport, Derek DeBoer, Jason Alexandridis and Craig Lyons, who joins the lineup for the first time since 2017, will all drive for the team this year.

Pumpelly will be racing No. 66 TRG/Lasalle Solutions Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport, and in SprintX, Pumpelly will drive No. 23 TRG/Stor-it/Mobettah Classic Cars Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport with co-driver Lyons.

DeBoer will be driving No. 17 TRG/FASTLIFE.TV/Silver State Consulting/Sierra Pacific Spine Institute/Rebounderz/BRM Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport with co-drivers Rappaport and Alexandridis.

“It is fantastic to have a powerful three-car team heading into our first big event at Circuit of the Americas in Austin and to be running with five such incredibly passionate and talented drivers for the full season,” said TRG Founder and CEO Kevin Buckler. “We are gunning for three championships, Sprint Pro, SprintX Pro-Am & SprintX Am.

“Derek and Jim are going to make a solid duo in their second season racing together in the Pirelli GT4 America SprintX races and will be sharing the No. 17 car throughout the season with Jason Alexandridis, whom we are excited to partner with Derek again this year for a handful of Pirelli GT4 America SprintX races. They are all terrific drivers, and we are all friends, which makes it even more awesome.

“The return of Spencer Pumpelly to the TRG team for this year’s championship run will be exciting. Spencer raced with TRG for many years, starting in 2006, and having him back behind the wheel of our TRG/LaSalle Porsche is going to be fantastic. We have such a strong history of several big wins together, including Daytona, so we know this is going to be an exciting year on the track. We are definitely running for a championship and hope to make Porsche proud.”

In addition, LaSalle Solutions will be back on board as the team’s primary sponsor for the sixth-straight year.

“Over a half decade LaSalle Solutions and TRG formed a marketing partnership leveraging the racing program and Winery,” Steven Robb, President Solutions Group at LaSalle Solutions. “As with everything we do our expectations were high, but I would not have imagined how successful the program has worked out for us. LaSalle has not only stood on the podium, competed for championships and brought a unique experience to our customers, prospects and partners, but we have also been featured in the NY Times and numerous forms of media. The icing on the cake was to be associated with an Amazon Prime show FastLife.TV and have customers and partners comment after binge watching the racing reality TV show.”

Gigi Becali, the flamboyant owner of Bucharest football club FCSB, formerly known as Steaua Bucharest, thinks he knows what is to blame for his team's recent poor run in the Romanian league: too much sex.

The 1986 European Cup winners, Romania's most successful club with 26 league titles, have failed to win their last three games, and Becali said after FCSB's 1-1 home draw against lowly Chindia Targoviste: "My players are making love with their girlfriends too often, that's why they aren't playing football so well lately."

The result left them fourth in the table, eight points behind leaders CFR Cluj.

Becali, who made his fortune in real estate after the fall of communism in 1989 and served as a member of the European Parliament, praised CFR Cluj coach Dan Petrescu, a former Chelsea and Southampton right-back, for restoring discipline at the club.

"Look at Dan Petrescu," Becali said. "CFR players have sex only once a week. They meet with women only once a week."

CFR officials could not be reached for comment.

"If [FCSB striker] Florinel Coman would have rested too ... but he is doing other things," Becali added.

BCB president Nazmul Hassan has told Mushfiqur Rahim that he was contract-bound to travel to Pakistan for the one-off ODI and second Test in Karachi - the last leg of a three-part tour - in April, saying that players must "think about the country, and not about themselves".

"We are expecting that he would go," Hassan said at a press conference in Mirpur on Tuesday afternoon. "Not only him, but every contracted player should go. Players have to think about the country, and not just themselves. This is what I personally feel.

"The country comes before everything else. Everyone should keep it in mind. We will remind them that the contracted players must play as they are told, when selected. It never occurred to me that one has to tell them this, too."

Mushfiqur had refused to travel with the rest of the team for the first two legs, saying in January that his family was worried about his safety, but might not have a say in the matter anymore.

It's a bit of a change of stance on the part of Hassan, who had said before the tour that players could choose whether to travel to Pakistan or not and that the board would respect the players' decision.

"Let me say it simply: we also had fears about security, but now that we have played, and even someone from his family has played [brother-in-law Mahmudullah], will the family only cry about him but not when something happens to Riyad," Hassan said. "He should hear about Pakistan from Riyad or his other team-mates.

"But look, I will not force anyone to go to Pakistan, so he should definitely go if he has spoken to the others."

The ODI is scheduled for April 3, with the Test beginning on April 5. Pakistan had won the first Test, in Rawalpindi, by an innings and 44 runs.

Zimbabwe captain Craig Ervine has said that his batsmen should have taken advantage of the drizzle to stay in the one-off Test against Bangladesh for longer. The visitors were bowled out for 189, eventually losing by an innings and 106 runs. They lasted just 52.3 overs on a cloudy fourth day with occasional drizzle. Ervine said that the batsmen shouldn't have played shots in the air, rather let the ball get soaked more in the rainwater.

"Batting first, we should have got at least 400," Ervine said. "The wicket was good enough to post a score like that. Getting bowled out for 265 put us on the back foot and allowed Bangladesh to go past us. We could have also batted better in the second innings. The wicket wasn't really that bad. I thought our bowlers worked hard to get those six wickets. Obviously [we] didn't hit the right areas enough, but I just thought that our batting let us down.

"It was a combination of application and execution. The guys obviously tried to go over the top and didn't execute the plans properly. In the past, it has been difficult to bat last in Dhaka. Possibly, guys played a few too many shots because of the turn. But the ball was wet because of the drizzle."

Zimbabwe still had some conviction left in their batting when Ervine, who made a century in the first innings, got set with Sikandar Raza. They added 60 for the fifth wicket before Mominul Haque ran out his opposite number with an excellent direct hit from the covers.

"It was very disappointing," said Ervine. "At the time it seemed like myself and Raza were going well. We got some momentum on our side, and then we basically gave it back to Bangladesh. I have always wanted to get back-to-back hundreds in a game, and I thought today was the perfect opportunity."

He said that Zimbabwe missed Sean Williams the most, but also suffered due to an inexperienced bowling attack.

"Sean Williams is a big part of our team," Ervine said. "He contributes with the bat, ball and field. We missed him hugely.

"We have an inexperienced bowling line-up. Charlton Tshuma was playing his first game. Victor was playing his third Test match. Ainsley played a handful of games. Donald Tiripano is the experienced one. We just didn't hit the right areas for long enough. Without doing that, you can't build any pressure."

Sri Lanka have completed 38 ODIs since the start of 2018. In that time, how many individual centuries do you think Sri Lanka batsmen have racked up?

The answer is six. Just half a dozen hundreds in a period of more than two years, which included a World Cup. Two of those hundreds went to Kusal Perera, and one each to Thisara Perera, Danushka Gunathilaka, Avishka Fernando and Angelo Mathews. Unsurprisingly, Sri Lanka have won only 14 ODIs - losing 24 - during this sequence.

Even the victory on Saturday saw several top order batsmen make promising starts, and yet, the highest score on the Sri Lanka card was 52. Ahead of the second match, coach Mickey Arthur has zeroed in on Sri Lanka's poor conversion rate.

"Our batting was really good in patches on Saturday," Arthur said. " In our top six - and those are the guys who have to get us close - we had 52, 50, 47, 20, 5 and 18. That was good that they got in and got some partnerships. But we need a batsman going through. We need one of our batsmen getting a big score.

"Because that allows Thisara Perera and Wanindu [Hasaranga] the freedom to come in at the back end and finish things off. I thought when they came in needing 90, that's still too far out. You're going to win three out of 10 games if your 7 and 8 need 90. But if your 7 and 8 walk into the game and you still need 40 to 50 runs, you're winning eight out of 10. Those are areas we look to improve on."

The victory, nevertheless, is a fillip not only for the team, but also the new set of support staff, who suggest they've brought fresh thinking and a new approach to the set up, which had been without a full-time head coach for several months last year. Prior to the first ODI, Arthur revealed a rough gameplan for Sri Lanka: focus on wicket-taking with the ball, while the top three batsmen have a licence to score quickly through the powerplay. The bowling didn't quite work out as Arthur had intended, but at least there was aggression at the top of the batting order, with Sri Lanka racing to 78 inside the first Powerplay.

"You can buy into strategy, you can buy into gameplans, and you can buy into work ethic, but you need wins along the way," Arthur said. "By getting that win, albeit in a very close game, we almost solidified the path we're on. The guys buy into the game we want to play and buy into our brand of cricket. Wins give you that confidence and that morale boost - that you are actually on the right track. Getting a win in quite a close game does tend to bind the guys quite nicely."

Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan Wolverines will not be traveling abroad in what has become an annual spring trip due to fears over the coronavirus, the school said Monday.

"The football team will not be taking an international trip this spring due to health concerns around the world, most notably coronavirus," team spokesman Dave Ablauf told MLive.com in a text message. "[We're] looking at doing some community service in the Ann Arbor area."

Harbaugh has taken the Wolverines football team on privately funded spring trips to Italy (2017), France (2018) and South Africa over the past three years.

No location for this year's trip had yet been announced by administrators, who were tasked with making the details for the first time after Harbaugh had done it for the previous three trips.

"I told them to surprise me," Harbaugh told reporters in January. "The first trips ... it was like a one-man band. I was doing it all. And it was all time-consuming."

A viral outbreak that began in China has infected more than 80,000 people globally, and more than 2,600 deaths worldwide have been attributed to the virus. The World Health Organization has named the illness COVID-19, referring to its origin late last year and the coronavirus that causes it.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Spring training games have started, and as you scroll through the box scores looking for your super-secret fantasy pickups, it's worth noting which names you won't see at the moment: Major League Baseball's last few unsigned free agents. Yasiel Puig is the headliner here, but there are some other reasonably big names from the not-too-distant past still out there. None of these guys were All-Stars in 2019 -- there's a reason they remain unsigned, after all -- but there are 18 former All-Stars unsigned and unretired, including Puig. Let's take a look:

Yasiel Puig, RF
2019: .267/.327/.458, 24 HR, 84 RBI, 19 SB, 1.4 WAR
Bottom 5 in RF WAR projection (via FanGraphs): Mariners, Tigers, Cardinals, Padres, Marlins

Puig would be at least a minor upgrade for several teams beyond those listed above, including the Indians, the team he finished last year with after a midseason trade with the Reds. Recent reports had the Rays and Giants interested, but the Giants instead signed Hunter Pence and the Rays seem pretty set in the outfield with Austin Meadows in right field and a slew of options in left and center field. It also seems clear that some of the baggage that comes with Puig has dulled interest in him.

How about the Rockies? Puig projects as an improvement over Ian Desmond or Raimel Tapia (worth a combined minus-2.6 WAR a season ago), pushing Charlie Blackmon over to left field with David Dahl in center. One concern is that Puig's defense might be slipping despite above-average speed. His jump rate in the outfield ranked in the sixth percentile, according to Statcast, and that could be a disaster in Colorado.

Scooter Gennett, 2B
2019: .226/.245/.323, 2 HR, 11 RBI, minus-0.8 WAR
Bottom 5 in 2B WAR projection: Giants, Marlins, Rockies, Mariners, Red Sox

Gennett had a lost season in 2019, not returning until late June after suffering a severely strained groin, getting traded to the Giants and then getting released in August. He had just 139 plate appearances and didn't hit much, but he's just a year removed from his All-Star season of 2018, when he hit .310/.357/.490 with 23 home runs for the Reds. He hit .295 with 27 home runs the year before that, so it's not like 2018 stands out as a fluke season.

Gennett will turn 30 in May and lacks the defensive versatility teams might want at this point, but it seems his biggest obstacle is that the bad teams -- like some of those above -- want to try a younger player over the proven commodity. The Giants have Mauricio Dubon, the Marlins have Isan Diaz, the Mariners have Shed Long. The A's could be a potential fallback as a playoff contender without a clear second baseman at this point, as they have Chad Pinder, Sheldon Neuse, Franklin Barreto and Jorge Mateo as options.

Collin McHugh, RHP
2019: 4-5, 4.70 ERA, 74.2 IP, 82 SO, 12 HR
Bottom 5 in bullpen WAR projection: Marlins, Mariners, Tigers, Giants, Royals

McHugh won 43 games from 2014 to 2016, and after an injury-shortened 2017 season, he moved to the bullpen in 2018 on a deep Houston staff and posted a 1.99 ERA while holding batters to a .176 average. He started 2019 in the rotation but moved to the bullpen and later missed six weeks with a sore elbow and then all of September and the postseason. There could be some health issues that explain why he's still on the market, as his fastball and slider velocity were both dropping when he hit the injured list in late August.

McHugh had a 2.67 ERA as a reliever in 2019, so it probably makes sense to view him as reliever given his success there the past two seasons. He's not your classic flamethrower bullpen arm, as he ranked in the 10th percentile in fastball velocity, but he has a high-spin fastball and high-spin curveball that limit his hard-hit rate (92nd percentile). The White Sox aren't listed above, but they project into the picture with MLB's sixth-worst bullpen. He also makes sense for any of those five teams above as a player they could flip to a contender in July.

Addison Russell, SS
2019: .237/.308/.391, 9 HR, 23 RBI, 0.1 WAR
Bottom 5 in SS WAR projection: Orioles, Tigers, Rangers, Pirates, Reds

Let's be honest here: If Russell had hit better in 2019, he wouldn't be floating out here in free agency, even with the domestic violence suspension in his recent past. Russell's best season came in the Cubs' 2016 championship year, when he produced a 4.1-WAR season at age 22 thanks to some pop (21 home runs) and superb defense. He's still just 26 years old, so it's not unrealistic to think there's still something here, especially with the plus glove, but the bat has regressed. Is he still one of the 40 best shortstops on the planet? Probably. Will any team give him an opportunity, or need to give him that opportunity? If so, it probably will be in the minors and he'll have to show improvement at the plate.

Matt Harvey, RHP
2019: 3-5, 7.09 ERA, 59.2 IP, 39 SO, 13 HR
Bottom 5 in rotation WAR projection: Giants, Blue Jays, Royals, Mariners, Orioles

He's a big name, but Harvey is a 30-year-old with middling stuff coming off a terrible season. It's possible that his career is over. Besides the ugly numbers with the Angels after he signed a one-year, $11 million contract, consider some of the advanced metrics from 2019:

• 10th percentile in hard-hit rate
• Fifth percentile in exit velocity allowed
• Second percentile in expected batting average allowed
• First percentile in expected wOBA allowed

Quick hits

Clay Buchholz, RHP: You never know when Buchholz might pop up and give you 15 good starts, like he did for the Diamondbacks in 2018. He had a 6.56 ERA in 12 starts for the Blue Jays last year, however, missing more than three months with shoulder issues.

Fernando Rodney, RHP: Rodney turns 43 in March and still throws pretty hard to go with his plus changeup, but the command is shakier than ever (5.3 walks per nine), making him a back-of-the-bullpen option at best.

Russell Martin, C: I'm a little surprised Martin hasn't signed as he's a quality leader who ends up on winning teams -- he played for seven playoff teams in the 2010s. He doesn't hit for average, but he draws enough walks that he still posted a .330 OBP with the Dodgers in 2019. He'd be a serviceable backup again, but he also has made a lot of money in his career and might not want to go to a non-contender.

Steve Pearce, 1B: The 2018 World Series MVP battled injuries last year and hit just .180 in 29 games. He turns 37 in April, and given that power is easy to find these days and platoon first basemen aren't in high demand, his days might be numbered. Pearce has played 13 seasons in the majors and never batted 400 times in one season. I wonder if any non-catcher/pitcher has ever done that? (Quick check ... the answer is yes. Several guys. Jim Dwyer was a first baseman/pinch-hitting specialist in the 1970s and '80s who played 18 seasons with a career high of 292 PAs.)

Andrew Cashner, RHP: He went 11-8 with a 4.68 ERA for the Orioles and Red Sox last year, and reports last month had the Orioles interested in bringing him back. He also could fit as a bullpen piece for the Nationals or maybe a starter for the Yankees, given their injury issues with James Paxton and Luis Severino. Last season, Cashner also threatened to retire if he was traded (he didn't), so who knows how much he wants to play.

Sam Dyson, RHP: Dyson has a 2.98 ERA over the past two seasons, but he is being investigated for domestic violence after an ex-girlfriend accused him of abuse, making him, like Russell, persona non grata. Dyson also underwent capsule repair surgery on his right shoulder in late September.

Tony Sipp, LHP: The veteran lefty held batters to a .644 OPS last season. He'll pop up somewhere.

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Mark Trumbo, 1B/DH: Hey, he's a two-time All-Star, the second time coming in 2016 when he mashed 47 home runs for the Orioles. He played just 12 games last year, however, not returning until September following knee surgery in August 2018. He has been worth more than 1.0 WAR once in the past seven seasons, so he's really just an injury backup plan at this point.

Melky Cabrera, OF: He played a lot for the Pirates last year, getting into 133 games and receiving 397 PAs, but his bat was below average (.280/.313/.399) and his defense well below average, as it has been for several years now. An aging backup outfielder who can't play center field isn't exactly high on wish lists.

Aaron Sanchez, RHP: The 2016 American League ERA champ when he went 15-2 with a 3.00 ERA, Sanchez has struggled with blister issues since then, was traded in July to Houston and then went down with a shoulder issue after four starts with the Astros. He underwent a similar surgery that Julio Urias had for the Dodgers in 2017, and Urias was out for over a year, so Sanchez might miss the entire season.

Ben Zobrist, UT: He turns 39 in May and missed much of 2019 while taking time off to work through a divorce. When he did play, he had a .350 OBP but had just one home run in 150 at-bats. He's also just a season removed from hitting .305/.378/.440. MLB Network's Jon Heyman tweeted a couple of weeks ago that Zobrist has no plans to play in 2020, but no official retirement has been announced. If he is done, what a career: 45.2 WAR, two rings (Royals and Cubs) and a run from 2009 to 2014 when his versatility, defense and production made him one of the best players in the game.

DUNEDIN, Fla. -- Coming up through the Toronto Blue Jays farm system together, spending hours upon hours with each other in Lansing, Dunedin, New Hampshire and Buffalo, the trio of famous baseball sons -- Bo Bichette, Cavan Biggio and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. -- started assembling a vision for the shared future of baseball in Toronto.

After the infamous bat flip from Jose Bautista in the 2015 AL Division Series put an exclamation point on a previous era of Major League Baseball in Canada, Blue Jays baseball turned the page following the introduction of Mark Shapiro as team president in 2016. As they began rising up through the minor leagues together, Biggio, Bichette and Guerrero quickly recognized their value. They spent three years together, climbing the minor league ladder, and just a quick glance around the minor league clubhouse unveiled the puzzle pieces for the future of the Blue Jays.

"I don't think we ever really talked about it directly, but we were obviously trying to get better as individual players and work our way up to the big leagues," Biggio told ESPN. "I think we all saw a vision of that when we started playing every level together, and then slowly moving on up. You see the writing on the wall. There was a level of excitement in our work and wanting to get better, and just trying to win baseball games. It wasn't any direct conversations, but there's definitely some excitement."

The sense of optimism at Blue Jays spring training this year is palpable, even if the pundits don't expect the team to compete for as much as a wild-card spot. At this point in 2019, the majority of preseason buzz around the Blue Jays centered around the incoming debut of Guerrero, one of the most-hyped prospects in baseball history, creating a circus only recently matched by Bryce Harper.

Of course, the attention around Guerrero persists, as the 20-year-old enters his second full season at the major league level after hitting .272/.339/.433 with 15 homers, 69 RBIs and 26 doubles and 2.1 WAR in 123 games last year. But now matched up with Bichette, who hit .311/.358/.571 with 11 homers, 18 doubles and 2.1 WAR in just 46 games, and Biggio, who hit .234/.364/.429 with 16 homers and 2.8 WAR in 100 games and hit for the cycle in September, the spotlight has had to expand to make room for all three.

"I wouldn't say pressure," Guerrero said when asked if he feels any pressure after 2019. "I really feel a lot more comfortable now with them and the chemistry is very good. We've all been working hard as a team, so I'm OK with that now."

The trio of Guerrero, Biggio and Bichette represents the future of the Blue Jays, a young group that faces extra scrutiny as the sons of two Hall of Famers -- Vladimir Guerrero Sr. and Craig Biggio -- and a four-time All-Star and Silver Slugger winner in Dante Bichette. Biggio, who was drafted in the fifth round by Toronto in 2016, watched the core of Josh Donaldson, Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Marcus Stroman leave the franchise following the team's last playoff appearance in 2016 and recognized the opportunity available for the next generation of players.

"When the turnover happened, where all of those players moved on to other teams and we're coming up, I think it's really exciting to see when I first got drafted, to see what it will be like when we are good, and then go through the lows and now we're trying to build it back up," Biggio said. "It's cool to see the highs, and then you have to work the process, and now you're trying to work your way to get back up there."

This spring training marks the first time Toronto's three young players have entered camp knowing their spots on the roster are safe. They do not need to extend themselves beyond what's necessary to impress coaches and teammates.

"Last spring training, I felt like I was in-season because I was trying to impress people," Bichette said. "This spring, it'll be a happy medium of playing hard, but also not wasting too much energy."

"Each one of us has worked very hard to get to this moment, but now we work differently," Guerrero told ESPN's Marly Rivera. "You are no longer trying to 'make the team.' You're trying to improve. You don't feel like you have to show anyone anything. You don't take 50, 60 ground balls just to take grounders. You focus on a specific sequence or you just work hard on all the things you want to improve upon."

Of the group, Guerrero made his major league debut first, coming up at the end of April. Then came Biggio, who made his debut in mid-May before the Blue Jays finally called up Bichette in July to reunite the trio at the major league level, creating a sense of normalcy for Biggio.

"It just made life easier, especially for me coming up last and being able to go up there and have comfortability, and not acting like I'm walking on eggshells, making sure that I'm not making anybody mad," Biggio said. "I've got guys, not just them, that I've played with for a few years, so I think it made it a little bit easier of a transition for us."

The elder Bichette -- who played from 1988 to 2001 with the Angels, Brewers, Rockies, Reds and Red Sox -- is helping out at Blue Jays camp as a special instructor, allowing him to work with his son every day. Bichette said that the trio of baseball sons coming up together helped all three adjust to life as a pro.

"I think it's been good for all of them because they've all had a similar life," Dante said. "They can relate and know what each other has been through. It's good because that's helped them because their dads have told them the pitfalls of this game and how to mentally handle it more than physically. They have the physical talents and deal with that, but the mind usually comes a little bit later with players, and they had their families' help with that."

Walking into the Blue Jays clubhouse, it's undeniable whom the future revolves around. A team calendar on the wall features big images of Bichette and Biggio. Despite his youth, Guerrero is already one of baseball's most famous stars after his eye-opening performance at the Home Run Derby last year in Cleveland, delivered on top of all of the preseason hype. Given the relative dearth of veteran leadership in the Blue Jays clubhouse, some of those responsibilities already are falling onto the shoulders of Bichette, Guerrero and Biggio.

"You feel more of a sense of responsibility, especially toward the new players that we have on the team now," Guerrero said. "That is part of your job now, too, to be a great teammate and keep everyone on the same page."

Bichette, who has a more reserved personality, said that he hopes to lead by example.

"My goal, I don't come out here trying to be a leader. I think that gets you in trouble a bit, trying to keep people in line," Bichette said. "For me, I think being around good players, most of the good leaders work hard and prepare well. They work hard, they're always on top of things and they lead by example. I think if you talk too much or hold people accountable too much, your words will come on deaf ears. For me, it's about handling myself the right way, like a professional, and if people want to look to me as a leader, that's fine, but that's not necessarily my goal."

The elder Bichette said the payoff of riding the bus in the minor leagues together is already evident in the team's laid-back clubhouse.

"One of the first things you learn in professional baseball is how to get along with people because you become 24/7 with guys almost immediately," Dante said. "You're thrown off the once-a-week baseball to every day, you're living with these guys. It takes a while to learn that, to learn how to deal with people every day whether their personalities work for you or not. For these guys to have overcome that hump together, they know how to deal with each other."

Despite tempered expectations, the young Jays are optimistic about the season that lies ahead. The high-powered Yankees are the favorites to take the AL East, while the Rays and Red Sox will factor into the wild-card race. Bichette said he expects Toronto to keep up, especially following the addition of Hyun-Jin Ryu to headline the rotation. FanGraphs projects the Blue Jays to finish in the bottom third of the league with the likes of the Texas Rangers, Colorado Rockies, San Francisco Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates.

"I expect us to compete. I expect us to do really well," Bichette said. "We've got a lot more talent than people realize. I don't think people are really taking into account that some of our guys are going to take steps forward and become really impact players."

Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo heaped praise on the younger Bichette, who provided a spark in Toronto during the second half of 2019 while replacing Freddy Galvis, the slick-fielding, light-hitting infielder who started 115 games at shortstop for Toronto before Bichette's debut.

"There's no way to do any better than what he did. We had a funny conversation there at the end when we were talking to all of the players about their offseason plans, and he was the one where we told him to do the same thing that he did last year," Montoyo said. "Just work on your defense and your hitting. Don't change anything because nobody can play as good as he did.

"The funny thing is that with Galvis, you remember how good he was? We thought we were going to miss him because he's really good, and then all of a sudden, Bo shows up and makes all of those plays so we forgot about Freddy. That's a big compliment, that we forgot about Freddy that quick."

Much of the discussion in the opening days of camp centered around the improvements Guerrero is hoping to make next season. Despite his reputation as a hitter with enormous power, the Blue Jays believed that Guerrero hit the ball into the ground too often, with nearly half of his batted balls on the ground in 2019.

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Guerrero, who spent most of the offseason working out in Florida, will also continue getting defensive reps at third base while factoring in as a designated hitter as well. Montoyo also did not rule out the possibility of Guerrero sliding across the diamond to play some first base.

"I'm never going to say no," Montoyo said. "But I know if he ever goes to first base, he's got good hands. Right now, he's our third baseman, but he had a great offseason."

If the Blue Jays hope to exceed expectations and make a dent in the always-competitive AL East, they'll need Bichette, Biggio and Guerrero to make waves this season. Having spent 14 years in the major leagues in his own right, the elder Bichette hopes to see all those days spent together by Toronto's second-generation big-leaguers pay off in a big way.

"It's big when you can come up with dreams instead of trying to hang on or be put together in the last minute," Dante said. "They've all got dreams, talked about their dreams together, and here they are trying to chase them."