DUNEDIN, FLA.—Five questions the Blue Jays need to answer in spring training:

1. Job battles? You got ’em this spring. Jesse Litsch in the bullpen. Eric Thames vs. Travis Snider in left field. Who fills the three through five spots in the rotation — Brett Cecil, Henderson Alvarez and Dustin McGowan have the inside track, but they are not automatic locks. So who will head north with the Jays?

2. Manager John Farrell wants second baseman Kelly Johnson to “take the No. 2 hole (in the batting order) and run with it” — does Johnson satisfy his manager’s request?

3. Brett Cecil lost 32 pounds over the winter and basically reinvented his body —the organization requested him to lose weight. The next part is gaining consistency in his delivery and taking it to the field in games. Cecil has a huge challenge in front of him this spring, does he pull it off?

4. There’s always focus and pressure on Jose Bautista to lead the team and be at, or near the top, on home run production. His spring training stats likely won’t mean much, but watching him round into shape will be important. How does the Jays best player look in spring?

5. This is a huge moment in Canadian Brett Lawrie’s career. He’s about to embark on his first full season in the majors. He’s looking solid and ready for the challenge, but is that the case over the next six weeks of spring?

DRUG TESTS A HOT TOPIC: Jays reliever Carlos Villanueva sided with the popular opinion in the Jays clubhouse on the subject of the number of drug tests slugger Jose Bautista underwent over the past two seasons.

Villanueva said he was “surprised how often he (Bautista) was tested . . . it seemed excessive.” Bautista, in a random comment at a dinner in his native Dominican in January, claimed he was tested a total of 16 times by major league baseball.

“If it’s 16 times then I don’t think it’s random at all,” Villaneuva said. “I know, I heard there’s some dispute about, somebody said it’s impossible he got tested (that many times). It’s him that got tested, I can’t really tell you how many times he got tested.

“But I think if it was 16 or anything close to that I think it’s a little excessive in a two-year period. I’ve been tested four times in the two years. I know I haven’t hit 50 homers.”

Villanueva was part of the major league baseball players’ association executive board, and contributed to the sessions that led to the new Collective Bargaining Agreement for the sport.

Included in that agreement are first time provisions for blood testing and testing for human growth hormone.

Blood testing was part of the physicals performed at the Jays clubhouse in Dunedin on Wednesday, the mandatory reporting date for pitchers and catchers. Position players are all due no later than Saturday.

Villanueva said the protocol for HGH testing over the course of the season is still being worked out. But players will be tested for HGH in 2012 on reasonable cause, while random testing will come into full effect in 2013.

Villaneuva said the current drug testing language in the CBA will be reviewed and discussed by the union.

WILDCARD SUPPORT: Villanueva said the players are supportive of the additional wild card entry expected to be introduced either this season or next.

But there remains some logistical details with scheduling that need to be worked out, Villanueva said.

For instance, the regular season ends on a Wednesday this year, with the divisional playoffs scheduled 48 hours later. An East Coast or West Coast team could conceivably fly across the country for the wild card, then fly back home to immeidately begin the divisional playoff. Villanueava felt that scheduling could be difficult on the players.

“In the end it seems like somebody always gets the short end of the stick but we’re trying to make it so that won’t happen,” Villaneuva said.

SO IT BEGINS: Pitchers and catchers had their physicals Wednesday morning, then took the field in what is the first official reporting date in Toronto Blue Jays spring training.

With pitchers and catchers officially on board Wednesday, the team is all but set to begin preparing for the opening of the spring schedule next week.

The full squad reporting date arrives Saturday, but most of the key players have been in camp since last week. Colby Rasmus, Kelly Johnson and Yunel Escobar are the only members of the expected starting lineup who aren’t in Dunedin yet.

Toronto’s roster is mostly set, save for a few key battles that could claim some familiar names for Jays fans.

The more intense competitions will feature Eric Thames and Travis Snider in left field. While it’s only speculation at this point, Snider could be at a crossroads in his career if he doesn’t emerge from spring training with a job in the major leagues.

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He has been demoted several times over the past two seasons and would appear to spinning his career wheels should the club return him to the minors this time.

But Snider remains a young and valuable asset at this time, and it’s likely the Jays will keep him around rather than give up on him at this point.

Jesse Litsch is in a earnest battle to keep a job in long relief in the bullpen; both Carlos Villanueva and Luis Perez have the inside track on the two long relief openings.

Manager John Farrell said he will go with 10 starters over the spring schedule. Five of them — Ricky Romero, Brandon Morrow, Brett Cecil, Henderson Alvarez, and Dustin McGowan — are the projected starting five.

But Kyle Drabek, Deck McGuire, Chad Jenkins, Drew Hutchinson and Aaron Laffey, will also see starting duty over the next six weeks.

Hutchinson, the gem find in the 2009 draft, is believed to be the first option should one of the Cecil, Alvarez, or McGowan, stumble in spring.

Farrell also said he’d like to see second baseman Johnson “take the No. 2 hole (in the batting order) and run with it.”

The answers and problem solving begins when the Jays meet the Pirates at home in Dunedin on March 3.

ROSTER MOVE: The Jays signed right-handed pitcher Rick Vandenhurk to a non-guaranteed contract Wednesday. The 26-year-old appeared in four games last season, including two starts for the Baltimore Orioles, and had an 8.00 ERA.

The 6-5, 215 pound pitcher has appeared in 46 major league games, including 35 starts over five seasons with Florida and Baltimore, with an 8-10 record with a 5.97 ERA.

He’s from Eindhoven, Netherlands.

To make room on the 40-man roster, the Jays placed pitcher Alan Farina on the 60-day disabled list.

FERNANDEZ BACK IN BASEBALL: The Texas Rangers have hired former all-star shortstop Tony Fernandez as a special assistant to general manager Jon Daniels.

Fernandez went to five all-star games and won four straight Gold Gloves with the Toronto Blue Jays, where he spent most of a 17-year career that ended in 2001. He reached the playoffs with five different teams and won a World Series with the Blue Jays in 1993.

The 49-year-old Fernandez was a career .288 hitter and had a .327 batting average in 43 post-season games.

Since he retired, Fernandez has earned several degrees in ministry school and is an ordained minister. He helps run the Tony Fernandez Foundation, a non-profit with offices in Canada, the U.S. and his native Dominican Republic.

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