Day 2 Pick: Atlanta over 80.5
This one hurts.

About the only thing worse would be writing that I see the Yanks as an over for this year. (I wonder if T.J. does... we'll know Friday.) But outside of that, this is as bad as it gets. Yes, I think the Braves are an over at 80.5.

Look, I'm not happy about it either, but you have to call a spade a spade. This is the Braves -- the team that hogged division titles for 14 damn years. It's going to take more than one bad season for me to turn my back on that corpse. Maybe I've just seen too many zombie movies, but I suspect the Braves are coming back to life this year.

The bottom line is they got better in the offseason. Sure, they lost the right side of their infield, but they drastically improved their bullpen with the additions of Mike Gonzalez, Rafael Soriano to complement the bonafide closer they lacked for much of last season, Bob Wickman. Atlanta blew 29 save opportunities last year. Don't expect for a repeat of that.

And while Marcus Giles and Adam LaRoche -- the aforementioned right side of the infield -- are gone, there's still plenty of firepower in that empty stadium in Atlanta. The Braves scored a lot of runs last year and with the Joneses and underrated Brian McCann in the heart of the order, they should do so again. And despite Jeff Francoeur's dreadful start to 2006, he still finished with a .260 average, 29 homers and 103 runs batted in. As far as sophomore slumps go, that's pretty damn good.

If there's hope for Braves-haters in New York, Philly, Florida and Washington, it's that the back end of the rotation is a little shaky right now with Mike Hampton stuggling through the dreaded oblique strain. But then again, it's 2007 and I'm not sure there's any other kind of back end of a rotation other than a shaky one.

What I think this all means is that the Braves will be in the hunt this year. Damn.

THE PICKS
Monday: T.J. picks Minnesota over 83.5; Steve picks Arizona over 77.5
Tuesday: T.J. picks ?????; Steve picks Atlanta over 80.5
Wednesday: T.J. picks ?????; Steve picks ?????
Thursday: T.J. picks ?????; Steve picks ?????
Friday: T.J. picks ?????; Steve picks ?????