Is team for real? I'll be honest, I didn't think much of Atlanta Braves' chances this year, but they're off to an incredible start. It turns out that team might be closer to contention than we thought. We'll have to see what the next two or three months bring for team.

It's here that I want to complain about April being a house of mirrors and bad baseball analysis, except May is pretty much the same thing. We're months away from telling the fringe-good teams apart from the fringe-bad teams. Remember last year, when we spent five months thinking the Brewers were good? Feels like someone got the password to my brain and edited that in.

Which is all a way to introduce the 5-1 Braves. They weren't supposed to be good this season. They probably aren't good. It wasn't just you and I who felt this way, or else the Braves wouldn't have traded Craig Kimbrel before Opening Day. The 5-1 Braves shouldn't mean anything other than, "Every so often, bad teams can win five games out of six."

And yet ...

If the Braves were to contend for a postseason spot, it would be the kind of surprise we're used to every year. It would be the kind of surprise that stopped being a surprise by August because we were acclimated to the whole thing. It wouldn't be something that inspired a 400-page book about the wonders of baseball and the unlikeliness of it all. It would be a surprise but nothing more. We know that baseball likes to set small fires as it goes along, just to watch the flames lick up toward the sky.

So let's look at what it would take for the Braves to contend in 2015. If the Braves are going to win 88 games or more, the following things would have to happen.

The starting pitching would have to do what it's expected to do

That's it, and that's why this article exists in the first place. When a team starts with a rotation (or lineup) that's legitimately competent, if not outstanding, it's silly to write them off completely. If the Phillies were to contend in 2015, for example, their lineup would have to be drastically better than we're expecting, and their rotation would have to be drastically better. Stacking both of those unrealistic hopes on top of each other makes a surprise season exponentially unlikely.

The Braves start with the pitching, though. Julio Teheran is already outstanding, and so is Alex Wood. Shelby Miller looked sharp in his first start and has as much potential as anyone in the organization. Put it this way, do you know how many teams had at least one starting pitcher worth four wins? There were 17. The Braves were one of only five teams that had two of those starters, and the other four teams all won their division.

Don't focus on the filler at the back, like Trevor Cahill and Eric Stults. If they're a problem, the Braves will figure something out. They usually do.

They'll need their young stars to progress in a way that wouldn't be surprising

Would you be floored if Freddie Freeman had an MVP season? Would it be one of the top ... 100 surprising baseball-related storylines this season? No to both. If he doesn't progress at all, Freeman is still an excellent first baseman, but there's always a chance for a player like him to ascend into the MVP tier and stay there for a few years.

The same goes, on a much smaller scale, for Andrelton Simmons. He's not going to hit .300 with power, but could he hit as well as Brandon Crawford? Could he hit a little better? Sure, he absolutely could. There's still room for development there.

Once you've pretended that Freeman is likely to develop into a superstar and Simmons will become an offensive asset instead of a liability, the Braves suddenly have an enviable foundation. The leaps of faith are over a puddle, not an ocean.

It starts to get a little trickier at this point.

They'll need some completely unexpected developments

This is why you can't expect the Braves to do well. You can only squint and see the different paths there. Counting on unexpected magic is like the famous comic, with the deus ex machina help acting as the same thing as "THEN A MIRACLE OCCURS." If you're going to predict that the 5-1 start isn't a mirage, you should be more explicit in step two.

The Braves are starting the following players in 2015: Eric Young, Jr., Kelly Johnson, and Alberto Callaspo. Occasionally, they'll start Chris Johnson and A.J. Pierzynski. Christian Bethancourt probably won't hit a lick, and Jace Peterson is still very much an unknown (with a -7 OPS+ in 79 career plate appearances, which is hard to do). They still might score 50 runs this year, most of them by way of raw pity.

What they'll need, then, are completely unexpected developments. Peterson hit .306/.406/.464 in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League last season; maybe he can approximate those numbers in the majors. Bethancourt hit .283/.308/.408 in the International League last season; maybe he can do the same. Nick Markakis is two years removed from his last excellent offensive season; maybe he has an even better year with his new team. Maybe Cameron Maybin exchanges his tools for production while managing to stay on the field.

Maybe Young steals 100 bases.

Maybe Johnson hits .350 with 50 doubles.

Maybe Pierzynski hits 40 homers and becomes America's favorite player.

And we're off the rails. But if you're adding all this up, and you can buy the Braves pitching being good enough to contend, if you can buy that Freeman and Simmons are young enough to get much better, all that's left is "THEN A MIRACLE OCCURS." It's fantasy, except it's going to happen for at least one team this year. Did you know that Marlon Byrd was excellent last year? He was, like, 58 years old, but he still surprised everyone with a productive season. He was excellent the season before, too, a year after he should have completely washed out of baseball.

The Braves just need a couple of Marlon Byrds, their young stars to become young superstars, and the pitching to keep on keepin' on. It's not so absurd when you put it like that.

(It's still absurd.)

Fine. But it wouldn't be the most absurd thing to happen in baseball over the last five years. It wouldn't be close. The Braves are starting with a legitimately talented rotation, and that moves their chances from impossible to unlikely. Once there's unlikely, baseball starts sniffing around. I wouldn't bet $5 on the Braves right now, but I also wouldn't bet $500 against them.