Exactly one year ago this weekend the Twins clawed through their coffin, dug from under the dirt, gasped for air and rose from the dead. Oh, sure, they staggered around for awhile like the zombies in "Night of the Living Dead'' or Marty Cordova attempting to catch a flyball but when general manager Terry Ryan announced Ron Gardenhire's hiring as Minnesota's new manager, the Twins officially began erasing themselves from Bud Selig's obituary list.

"That is kind of when we started to get over the hump,'' Ryan said. "There was a lot of curiosity with how we could hire a manager when we didn't know whether we would even play the season, but we had to get on with it. We had to move on. We had a lot of things happen over the last year but we're moving up.''

	Having a healthy Brad Radke could make the Twins even better in 2003.

"Moving up'' is as much an understatement as saying people occasionally misspell Doug Mientkiewicz's name. But pardon Ryan if his words don't quite capture his team's situation. He's never been in this position before. Normally at this time of the year he's making sure the company credit card is still valid.

But not this winter. This winter, there are no free agents ditching the Twins for higher salaries, no veterans demanding a trade, no scrambling for other teams' rejects, no selling plasma to meet payroll, no attempting to trade an arbitration-eligible player to New York before the phone company disconnects the long distance service. This year, the Twins are not the poorest, most downtrodden team in the country. This year, and for the first time since Ryan took over as general manager during the 1994 strike, the Twins are the undisputed favorite to win their division and a very possible World Series team.

That should have been the case last year, if only they had known they were actually going to play the 2002 season. Minnesota not only survived the ludicrous contraction threats though, it won the AL Central by 13½ games, upset Oakland in the Division Series and finished three wins shy of the World Series.

The best part of this story is that the Twins will be even better in 2003.

Virtually the entire Twins playoff roster will report to spring training in Fort Myers, Fla. next month, and those players should be healthier, more experienced and even better than they were in 2002. Despite fears owner Carl Pohlad would sell off his best players, he instead increased the payroll to the $50 million range, as unexpected a move as if he drove up to a Minnesota farm and told the family not to worry about their late mortgage payments, he wouldn't even think of foreclosing.

The only players missing from the clubhouse this spring will be relievers Mike Jackson and Bob Wells and designated hitter David Ortiz, which isn't exactly like losing Jim Thome. While the AL Central competition doesn't figure to be any better than last year, the Twins will be if they can simply stay healthy. Brad Radke, Eric Milton and Joe Mays all were hurt last season, missing 31 starts combined, the equivalent of an entire season for a starting pitcher. Even when those three were healthy enough to start, they weren't always at the top of their game.

The Twins will head to spring training with not only the entire rotation set, but almost the entire lineup as well -- the only open spots are right field and DH, where there are plenty of candidates. The last time the Twins could say something like that, the Metrodome was considered state of the art. Plus, many of those returning veterans, such as the amazing Torii Hunter, figure to be entering their prime.

Better yet, the Twins are actually able to sell season tickets this year, and best of all, with the contraction threat eliminated and a playoff appearance in 2002, fans are buying them. Minnesota is expecting to draw at least 2.2 million fans in 2003.

Oh, there are some concerns. The Twins still could use some power and they need to get more right-handed bats in to the lineup (Minnesota was 23-29 against left-handed starters and 71-38 against right-handers last year). And while Ryan says he's still looking at the free agent market, it's not like he's going to add a Japanese home run champ named Godzilla or the ace of the Cuban national team.

But what the heck. Those are mere trifles and the Twins can deal with the new Yankees when the two teams meet in next year's League Championship Series. In the meantime, this winter has been a wonderfully quiet one in Lake Wobegon. And a most welcome change of pace from the past decade spent worrying whether the repo man would show up and haul away the office furniture before Ryan could search under the cushions for spare change.

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at cuffscaple@hotmail.com.