LAKELAND, Fla. -- In spring training, you're allowed to look ahead and dream. In spring training, you're allowed to look back and ask, "What if ... ?"

But in this particular spring training, you might not be able to find any team more entitled to do both of the above than your Los Angeles Dodgers.

	Darren Dreifort hasn't pitched in a regular-season game since June 29, 2001.

It's hard to remember now that, once upon a time, the 2002 Dodgers led the NL West at the All-Star break. It's harder to remember that even though another NL West team (the Arizona Diamondbacks) won the division and still another (the San Francisco Giants) went to the World Series, the 2002 Dodgers still won 92 games -- their most in 11 years.

In retrospect, though, there's a question that needs asking:

How?

They paid Kevin Brown $15.2 million -- and he made just 10 starts. They paid Darren Dreifort $11 million -- and he never threw a pitch. They paid their projected starting rotation $41 million -- and still had to start Kevin Beirne and Giovanni Carrera in huge pennant-race games in September.

Offensively, they scored 106 fewer runs than the Diamondbacks. They drew fewer walks (just 428) than any Dodgers team (in a non-strike season) since 1936. And they had a lower on-base percentage (only .320) than any NL team except the Pirates.

And they won 92 games? How?

Five months later, even the manager sometimes wonders how.

"When you go 92-70," says Jim Tracy, "and you're 15th out of 16 teams in on-base percentage, and you're 16th out of 16 in bases on balls, and four-fifths of your rotation is missing the last two weeks, you think, 'Those are numbers that don't normally add up.' Normally, those are numbers that would correlate to more like 70-72 wins."

So how did they add up to 92? Well, the win total tells you something about the manager's inspirational qualities. And about the character of his players.

And about the brilliance of the closer (Eric Gagne). And about the quality of the pitchers who weren't lined up to see the honorable Dr. Frank Jobe.

And -- OK, we'll mention this as a favor to Bud Selig -- also about the size of the payroll (which ended up at $120 million).

But if you think the 2003 Dodgers are sitting around this spring, watching Brown and Dreifort heal before their eyes, and wondering how good this team can be if everything doesn't go wrong, you've spent too much time contemplating who will get that automatic NCAA berth from the Big Sky Conference.

"We want to be those '80s Dodgers," says Odalis Perez, a starting pitcher who miraculously didn't go down last year.

Those '80s Dodgers, you might recall, were more than just the last Dodgers to win the World Series (in 1988). They were the last Dodgers to win even one postseason game. (The Dodgers of the '90s played six playoff games -- and lost them all.)

But for these Dodgers to be those '80s Dodgers, they need to do more than bring back Orel Hershiser. To be those '80s Dodgers, these Dodgers need to work on their two magic words of the spring: "health" and "intelligence."

You'll notice, by the way, we said "health," not "luck." There's a reason for that. And it isn't just because Tracy's official philosophy is: "Create your own luck."

It's because when officials of other teams look at Brown, who has missed 40 starts the last two years, and Dreifort, who hasn't pitched in a real game since June 29, 2001, they don't say: "Boy, those Dodgers are unlucky."

What they do say is: "We told you so."

Maybe Brown's seven-year, $105-million contract and Dreifort's five-year, $55-million deal aren't the unanimous winners of the "Worst Contracts in History" awards. But let's just say they're in the argument.

It made no financial sense for then-GM Kevin Malone to give Brown a seven-year contract four years ago. It looks even less sensible now, with Brown about to turn 38 and three years of that contract still to be paid out.

Brown has been on the disabled list six times as a Dodger. He's recovering from serious elbow and back injuries. And as unbeatable as he can be at his best, four years as a Dodger and $60 million later, his team hasn't played a postseason game, and Brown has fewer wins (44) since then than Dave Burba (46). Among others.

Dreifort, on the other hand, is still only 30. But he owned just 39 career wins when Malone committed that $55 million to him two years ago. He owns 43 wins now. Dreifort is coming off his second Tommy John surgery and knee surgery. And as good as he can look at times, he still has never won more than 13 games in any season.

So all those baseball men whispering all those "I told you sos" have plenty of ammunition. Except for one thing: The GM these days, Dan Evans, isn't listening.

"People can criticize all they want," Evans says. "I'm not concerned with those criticisms. The one thing we do here is, we take care of our own. It's very easy to be critical of other people. The only thing I'm concerned about is the people who fill the uniforms. ... And both these guys love to play, and they both really missed playing.

"Their contracts are done," Evans says, "They're Dodgers. The only issue that matters to me is, if they're healthy, all they can do is help us."

What if ... ? Evans has worked for the Dodgers for 21 months -- "and I think I've seen Darren Dreifort pitch once (in a real game) the whole time I've been here," he says.

What if ... ? Tracy has managed 324 games as a Dodger. And the last time he had Brown, Dreifort and Andy Ashby -- his theoretical Big Three when he started -- in the rotation together "was the 12th of April -- in 2001," he says.

Both those streaks were bound to end sometime. Well, this might just be the time.

Outside of a brief sore-hip flareup, Dreifort has looked great this spring. (All three runs he allowed in his spring debut Sunday were unearned.) Brown has been brought along slowly, but he did throw a 1-2-3 inning Sunday in relief.

Meanwhile, Ashby's September blister problems have cleared up. And the final health question in the rotation, Kazuhisa Ishii, has shown no sign of being haunted by the nightmare of taking a line drive off the forehead last Sept. 8.

So all is well. So far. Too bad opening day is still four weeks away.

"We don't know yet if we're healthy," Evans says. "You know March 28. You know March 31. Not now. We'll worry about how healthy we are in a few weeks."

If everybody is healthy, the Dodgers would have six big-time starting pitchers -- Brown, Dreifort, Ashby, Ishii, Perez and Hideo Nomo -- along with a potentially dominating bullpen. So theoretically, they don't need both Brown and Dreifort to make it back. But don't try to tell the troops that theory and reality are one and the same.

"This team needs Kevin Brown," Perez says. "We need Darren Dreifort. We need everyone. I want to be part of history with this team. And to be part of history, we need to have a great pitching staff, not just a good one."

Well, last year, they had the third-lowest team ERA in the league, ripped off 97 quality starts and just missed leading the league in saves -- and it still wasn't enough to get them into the playoffs. So obviously, even "great" might not be enough if they don't get more production, more plate discipline and more consistency from the offense.

Evans says he went into the winter saying, "We've got to surround our pitching with more offense, wherever we can find it." But he didn't exactly have the Phillies' free-agent budget to acquire it with.

So the Dodgers gave $3.75 million to Fred McGriff, whose slugging percentage last year (.505) was 106 points higher than that of the guy he'll replace at first, Eric Karros. And next to McGriff, the hope is that the David Eckstein-esque Joe Thurston, coming off a 194-hit Triple-A season, can win the second-base job.

They've deepened the bench with Daryle Ward, Terry Shumpert, Ron Coomer and versatile ex-Rangers prospect Jason Romano. And the left-handed bats of McGriff, Ward, Thurston and Todd Hundley (who did hit three more homers than Karros last year) have to help an offense that hit 46 points lower against right-handers than left-handers.

But it's more than the personnel that concerns the manager. It's the approach.

Experience helps

He has been the Dodgers' GM for less than two years. But it was Dan Evans' mission when he arrived to rebuild the Dodgers' once-legendary organization. And you sure can't say he's afraid to surround himself with big names. Counting Jim Tracy, the Dodgers now have 10 men in the organization who have managed in the major leagues, plus four former general managers. Here's the list: MANAGERS Jim Tracy Jim Riggleman (coach) Glenn Hoffman (coach) Joe Amalfitano (sr. advisor, baseball operations) Tommy Lasorda (sr. VP) Del Crandall (special advisor, player development) John Boles (sr. advisor, baseball operations) Jerry Royster (minor-league infield coordinator) Terry Collins (minor-league field coordinator) Maury Wills (special instructor) FORMER GMS Bill Bavasi (player-development director) Dave Wallace (sr. VP, baseball operations) Dean Taylor (assistant GM) Lasorda

"I'll tell you what I told our players the first day," Tracy says. "I said, 'Shame on me if I ask this group of players to play any harder than they played the last two seasons -- because you can't play any harder than this group did. But I will ask that you play the game a little bit more intelligently.'

"I think if we play a little smarter in certain situations and the injury bug doesn't hamper us," Tracy says, "this team can go a long ways."

Two magic words: "health" and "intelligence." It might really be that simple. If they could win 92 games when so much went wrong on both those fronts, how many could they win if Brown and Dreifort are really back and the hitters actually work a three-ball count once in a while?

"I've learned that winning is a process," Tracy says. "And that's exactly what I told them. I didn't used to think that way. I used to think you could assemble a bunch of really good players, throw them in a row and win. But it doesn't work that way. And there's a familiarization in our camp now that I really like."

Most of the core group has played together in both of Tracy's two seasons. They went from 86 wins to 92 last year. And they were a scary 50 games over .500 (70-20) when they merely scored four runs or more.

So this spring, it plays on everyone's minds: Give them a healthy Kevin Brown. Give them a healthy Darren Dreifort. Score, say, four more runs a week. And this becomes an intriguing, and dangerous, team.

"There's just a sense now in our camp," the manager philosophizes, "that these guys have a strong realization how close they've been the last couple years, in circumstances in which any number of people in the industry said they had no chance of competing."

Everyone dreams in spring training. The Los Angeles Dodgers are no different. Except for one thing: Not everyone has $26 million worth of returning starting pitchers to help them ride that dream all the way to October.

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.