"Spring training is baseball's antibiotic.

The pitching, fielding, stuffy-head, so-you-can-rest-easy medicine. Everyone arrives in camp with hope, a mixture of healed limbs and carved physiques. Players are in the best shape of their lives, winter workouts apparently changing them from unflattering rhombuses to sleek isosceles triangles.

The Rockies' optimism this spring will be based on change — not a nip and tuck but a makeover of the Ty Pennington variety. The sweep of the clubhouse left empty lockers and wide eyes.

"I didn't see it coming. I knew there would be changes, but I didn't know that there would be that many," first baseman Todd Helton said. "It's not like I thought about it or was going through every roster move. The sheer fact is that there were a lot of trades."

It is a byproduct of what Helton admitted was his most "disappointing season." He went as far as to call 2011 a greater letdown than losing the 2007 World Series.

"No one expected us to be in the World Series," said Helton, whose September back injury has not interrupted his offseason training. "Everyone expected us to be in the playoffs last year. And I thought we had a team that could go deep once we got there."

The offseason turnover was designed to alter the clubhouse culture and improve performance. In no particular order, starting catcher Chris Iannetta, starting outfielder Seth Smith, twin starting third basemen Ty Wigginton and Ian Stewart, and closer Huston Street were shipped out."