Colorado stumbled early last season, as it has so often in the past. The Rockies were never able to rebound from a 20-38 start, during which they fell below .500 for good only 19 games into April, finishing that month with an 11-17 record. The Rockies endured a losing April for the 11th time in their 16-year history and the fourth time in the past five years.

"We are going into spring training looking to reboot," Hurdle said. "We are going to focus on getting our starting eight more at-bats, on getting more work for our bullpen. We haven't gotten the initial results we want (when the season starts), and last year we didn't get the overall results."

A year ago, the Rockies opened camp basking in the afterglow of their historic September run that carried them to the World Series. They won 14 of their final 15 regular-season games, including a one-game playoff to determine the NL wild-card team, and extended that run to 21 wins in 22 games before getting swept in the Series by the Red Sox.

Injuries to key players such as shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and first baseman Todd Helton stymied the Rockies last season, but they also were never able to find the same edge that carried them to such lofty heights in 2007.

"We have had an opportunity to do some honest self-evaluation," Hurdle said. "We had a taste of having success, and we did not handle it as well as we would like to. We understand that. We will discuss that. But we have to go out on the field and play. It's our actions that can change that, not our words.

"It's all part of maturing. I think everyone tried to dial it up. We wanted to go forward from being good to being great. We got outside ourselves."

WHERE, WHEN: Hi Corbett Field, Tucson, Ariz. First exhibition game is Feb. 25 against Arizona.

TOP CANDIDATE TO SURPRISE: OF Carlos Gonzalez, acquired from the A's in the November trade for LF Matt Holliday, is a talented 23-year-old who has been traded twice and is eager to settle in with the Rockies.

Gonzalez must show he can make steady contact in spring training after he had an alarming number of strikeouts last year. But in winter ball in his native Venezuela, where he played a total of 39 games, Gonzalez said he adopted the mind-set of a leadoff hitter with two strikes and did a better job of reaching base.

He has options, so the Rockies could easily send him to Class AAA, but Gonzalez, who began his career in the Diamondbacks organization and was traded to the A's in the December 2007 deal for RHP Dan Haren, seems poised to find a home with the Rockies and leave a good impression in camp, even if he falls short of making the Opening Day roster.

TOP CANDIDATE TO DISAPPOINT: RHP Josh Fogg, who pitched for the Rockies in 2006-07, will attempt to return after signing a minor league contract. Fogg, 32, will compete for the fifth starter's job, following a horrible season with the Reds. He will need a very good spring to open the season with the Rockies. Fogg is a prototypical back-of-the-rotation starter who competes to the utmost but has very ordinary stuff. It's easy to envision him scuffling in the spring and opening the season at Class AAA Colorado Springs, where he has agreed to go if another big-league job doesn't materialize.

AUTHORITY FIGURES: Manager Clint Hurdle, who is entering the final year of his contract, is 516-597 since taking over the Rockies on April 26, 2002. He has vowed the emphasis in spring training will be to get players ready for the regular season and not to keep them from getting hurt, which Hurdle said was more the case last year. Regulars are expected to play more in exhibition games and easily get more than 60 spring at-bats, and Hurdle intends to incorporate some situational drills he used in the minors to hone the players' execution and attention to fundamentals.

Only pitching coach Bob Apodaca and first base coach Glenallen Hill return from Hurdle's 2008 coaching staff. New additions include bench coach Jim Tracy -- Hurdle's likely successor if the team stumbles early and the decision is made to fire him -- hitting coach Don Baylor, who was the Rockies' first manager from 1993-98, bullpen coach Jim Wright and third base coach Rich Dauer.