MESA, Ariz. — In a Sunday morning meeting at Cubs camp, the team established its dress code for the 2016 season. The guidelines appear fairly straightforward.

“If you think you look hot, wear it,” said manager Joe Maddon. “That’s our dress code.

“The previous generation really frowns upon non-collared shirts, which I’ve never understood. They’ve always been in favor of the collared shirt and that being more acceptable than the non-collared shirt. I’ve never understood that logic. For me, there’s no such thing as having to have a specific shirt on. The biggest topic of discussion was shorts or not on the road. And again, if you wore shorts on the road I would never recognize that, so you’d get away with it. The $5000 suit on the airplane ride makes no sense to me whatever. I don’t know who you’re trying to impress.”

Maddon held the Sunday meeting with a group of 11 established players he calls his “lead bulls” to outline the team’s policies for the upcoming season. In addition to the dress code, the group discussed various matters of clubhouse decorum and logistics, from how to set up the team’s new locker room at Wrigley Field and which team flights should be open to players’ families.

“The interaction was fantastic,” Maddon said. “I love the fact that they’re willing to tell me what they think in front of me. I take that as a compliment.

“Back in the day, minor league managers would have all these rules up on the wall, man. And then you have the organizational stuff — show an inch of red in the back, hair is at a certain length, no facial hair, can’t have an earring, take it out and put it back in after the game. Well, I’m here to manage the team, not make rules.”

Presumably most won’t find it too hard to believe that this guy has no interest in making rules:

Maddon said that the team does have guidelines for player behavior, but that he trusts the Cubs veterans to enforce them before he ever needs to step in.

“I often kid that we don’t have any rules around here, but you do,” he said. “You have kind of a forcefield instead of an actual fence — guys know if you go past a certain point you might get stung a little bit, but you don’t have to actually see the fence there. I like that. I like to be treated that way.

“If someone from the outside looking in considers it lenient, wise, revolutionary, whatever you want to consider it, I just think it’s the right way to do things. If you have a tightly enough knit group, they’re going to bring that guy back in. And I think it’s much more lasting if it comes to a peer as opposed to an authoritative figure…. When you get to this point, you have professional people that are accountable.”

The players also agreed to maintain last season’s policy on children in the clubhouse, a hot topic in baseball these days after the sudden retirement of White Sox first baseman Adam LaRoche. Cubs players’ children are welcome in the locker room until three hours before the game, though Maddon stressed that “common sense will always prevail” if exceptions are necessary.