Spring Training is just around the corner, with Pitchers and Catchers reporting this weekend. Every team has new acquisitions, new faces in camp, new goals and a new hope for the new season. Every team also has their stories, their rejuvenated veterans and progressing prospects. This all boils down to the fact that every team has their stories to watch as the season begins.

OK, so Jeff kind of stole my article on Wednesday before I was able to write it. I still think there's relevant information in MY top 5 though, I think, so you're going to get it anyhow. Sort of. And it's totally different than Jeff's top 5.

1. Can Jamie Moyer Brendan Harris make it back to the majors?

The ageless versatile pitcher infielder has joined the Rockies to provide some semblance of dependability and consistency depth in from the rotation minors/bench. The real question is how can a 49 31 year old pitcher utility infielder recover well enough from Tommy John surgery a seriously crappy 2011 in AAA Norfolk to make it back to professional baseball, never mind the Major Leagues?

2. Will Nolan Arenado Casey Blake unexpectedly make the Major League Squadbe a decent stopgap contributor?

Nolan Arenado Casey Blake is 20 38 (he will be 21 38 for the majority of the 2012 season). While he hasn't yet played above A ball hit the point where he's a PH/defensive replacement, the Rockies have seen excellent contact defensive and strikeout rates leadership skills along with a sweet line drive swing beard. His defense has improved as well remained, changing his profile from a maybe who will likely have to move across the diamond bench player to a top flight 3B prospect stopgap starter at 3B. A lot of eyes will be on young Arenado the veteran Blake, just based on his upside beard alone.

3. Will the addition of veteran leadership push guys like Fowler to the next level?

Fowler's wRC+ by month: 99, 63, -43, 169, 109, 139. You'll notice that sharp uptick in July, all the way up to 169. June 30th, Mark Ellis was traded to the Rockies. The roster got older. Coincidence? I think not. This whole "aging the roster" thing has been all a ploy to get our talented CF to the next level of baseball mastery.

The real question here is: how much does Dexter Fowler like magic tricks?

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In a widely circulated AP piece by Arnie Stapleton, Todd Helton expresses relief that the Rockies enter 2012 with no expectations. This disappoints me. I want my team to be able to carry the expectation to do well and do well. Having said that, however, I can certainly live with just the "do well" part getting taken care of.

Russ Oates provides a recap of the new faces to come to the Rockies during the off season, just in case any of you weren't keeping track or got lost during all the shuffling.

Alex White hopes to prove that people came away with a false impression of what he's capable of in his abysmal short stint with the Rockies last summer. As Dan O'Dowd states, the "hardest thing for any of us is 'forget what you saw.' But we must forget what we saw..." Something tells me that he might not be wanting to refer only to White in that regard as far as 2011 is concerned. White's not currently projected to be in the Rockies rotation to start the season according to many pundits close to the team, but I'm still not sure I get why Guillermo Moscoso would be considered to have the inside track right now given statements from the front office regarding the open competition for rotation slots. It seems it may be a case of the FO saying one thing in public but with members of a team expressing a likely scenario off the record.

New Rockies Jeremy Guthrie and Casey Blake did some fan outreach, Blake in a chat with the Des Moines Register (via the Denver Post), and Guthrie in a mailbag with the Post.

In the ever interesting arena of baseball real estate, an unnamed former Rockies player has put his $3.99 million Castle Rock home on the market. Broker Jason Bates (yes Bates the former Rockie is this other former Rockies' real estate broker) says the former player valued his privacy, so he bought a total of 73 acres worth of property in the gated subdivision. The virtual tour shows the full-sized baseball diamond in the backyard, and what looks to be a bullpen/batting cage inside as well as a pretty substantial home weight room. I'm thinking that SBNation should pick up the tab on this place for the new Purple Row headquarters. It will help me improve the new cutter I've been working on and keep me in the best shape of my life.

Thursday is one of the days Rockies outfielder Carlos Gonzalez looks forward to during the year. His winter schedule ends, and his annual trip to Arizona begins.

Gonzalez says his efforts have intensified while staying in his native Maracaibo since last October. After a crash in an outfield wall which resulted in a wrist injury, the player couldn't swing a bat until November. His batting practice was practically a daily fixture at the Luis Aparicio Stadium, whenever his winter league club, Aguilas del Zulia, was in town. He didn't play this year in the Venezuelan Winter League. However, his training routine was extensively documented in that country's press and Twitter feeds.

"I feel I've doubled my efforts this offseason in order to improve. I hope things get so much better in 2012, since I feel I'm at a higher level now," Gonzalez said in statements released by his publicist, Fabiola Bohórquez Guerra.

CarGo knows how much of an asset he is for the Rockies: "In 2011, injuries forced me to miss too many games. One of my goals is to stay healthy. The rest will come with hard work," he said.

Most of his injuries are the result of his aggressive play, both with the glove and at the plate. He knows his fierce style needs to be handled with caution. "I will always be aggressive in the way I approach my game. It's hard for me to change that. I know I have to be more careful from now on if I want to stay healthy," Gonzalez said.

Playing Left Field permanently this season will certainly help him to achieve that goal.

The Rockies kept on adding more Venezuelan players to the roster this offseason. A mix of young and veteran men are now with Colorado, such as pitcher Guillermo Moscoso, catcher Ramón Hernández and infielder Marco Scutaro. The latter is a close friend of Gonzalez.

And that is certainly one more reason why CarGo is excited about the possibilities.

"I will be pleased to share the clubhouse with all of them. I admire them all and I get along nicely with every one of them. That will certainly help to keep a good mood within the team, and encourage us to go out and keep on winning games."

By this time next week, we'll be hearing all about spring workouts and which of the myriad rotation candidates are in the best shape of their lives, etc. Normally, this is one of my least favorite times of the baseball calendar, because at this point there is little to be decided in spring and yet much is written about things that will have no bearing on the upcoming season. After all, in recent years the Rockies have gone into Spring Training with the roster pretty much set outside of a couple of reserves.

This year though, 60% of the Opening Day rotation, 3 bullpen slots, and 4 out of the 5 bench position slots are wide open. Plus, we'll get to see how top prospects like Nolan Arenado, Chad Bettis, and Tim Wheeler fare in big league camp. In other words, this spring I might actually be paying serious attention to the typical fluff pieces in the early going. After all, there are so many viable rotation candidates and the Rockies only have a few weeks to properly evaluate the talent. At the same time, fans will be evaluating the many new faces on the Rockies, identifying their own favorites for the rotation and spotting the future stars in camp.

Here are the 5 players that I'll be paying the most attention to during Spring Training:

1. Nolan Arenado

I think that this will be true for nearly every Rockies fan with a passing knowledge of the farm system. Up until now, the 20 year-old Arenado has spent his time out of the public eye down in single A. But after his fantastic 2011 season, in which he led all of the minor leagues in RBIs then won the AFL MVP award, Arenado has been made a consensus top 25 prospect in baseball. There's been talk of him getting a real shot at the Opening Day job at 3B despite his never playing above High A, so it will be very interesting to see how true that talk is.

David Schoenfield of ESPN's Sweetspot wrote about the poor state of 3B in MLB last year--and third happens to be Colorado's weakest position at the moment, so a breakout by Arenado would truly be a welcome sight.

2. Juan Nicasio

Quite frankly, Nicasio is neck and neck (too soon?) with Arenado for the best story in camp -- and he runs away with the most inspirational story. Just six months ago, there were questions about whether Nicasio would ever walk again, much less pitch at the major league level, but Nicasio's rapid progress has been miraculous. In fact, it's the most Disney story to happen to the Rockies since 2007, if not ever. La Violencia is favored to make the starting rotation, and I know a lot of fans that will be rooting for him to do so.

3. Drew Pomeranz

Of Colorado's back-end rotation candidates this year, none has a higher ceiling than Pomeranz. The 23 year-old southpaw was moderately impressive in his rookie cameo, showing that he was polished enough to pitch in the Show. Pomeranz is the most visible reminder to Colorado fans that Ubaldo Jimenez is no longer with the team, so fairly or not, he's got to shoulder the burden of replacing a star pitcher who might be the most beloved in team history. It's a tough task, and I'm not sure that Pomeranz will be up to it. I certainly hope that he is.

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I scream. You scream. We all scream, for....we all hate the offseason and want to see baseball already.

The Rockies have the potential to taste the postseason with their current roster, it seems. The key to reaching that potential is.....*drumroll*....the young rotation. (Shocking I know). As much as we write about Jhoulys Chacin and Drew Pomeranz - their pitches' movement, their statistics, their prospect standings, their weight - all that matters is their production level. We are rapidly approaching the time where that is the only topic we have left to talk about (finally).

Until then,...we still get the features covering those topics. Pitchers and catchers report Sunday. While we wait, more standard offseason links...

Troy Renck blogged his response to Jhoulys Chacin's response to Dan O'Dowd's comments to Renck. Yeah. Sometimes it is difficult to know how much weight to give to a particular issue, but I think we are sufficiently down the rabbit hole at this point. It will all go away if he pitches well.

Renck focuses on Drew Pomeranz, who is confident he will be in the Opening Day rotation and stick there. Confidence is a good thing. We will see soon if he has the other necessary things. I think he does.

You're in the mood for a Spring Training preview aren't you? Joey Nowak provides a solid offseason review and season preview in depth for MLB.com.

Baseball Prospectus | Future Shock: Top 101 Prospects Kevin Goldstein produced his Top 100 101 prospect list. The Rockies have a strong showing with 5 of the 101 prospects on the list: OF Tim Wheeler (97), RHP Chad Bettis (79), C Wilin Rosario (61), LHP Drew Pomeranz (34) and 3B Nolan Arenado (20). Goldstein notes that all of those players would get bumped down one spot, now that Yoenis Cespedes has signed with Oakland. With Cespedes sliding into the #20 spot, Arenado moves to 21. Does that mean Arenado would be worth just under $36million on the open market?

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