I'll give myself a small pat on the back for adding Dallas Braden and suggesting his new approach may pay dividends this year as he had an increase in change ups. The good news he is still going with what works and throwing 29.4 percent change ups, but the results have been mixed on the peripherals.
While Braden is having some of the best control numbers of his career the strikeouts are back to career levels. While he had a huge K/9 early this year it now stands at 5.48, which is slightly down from a career rate of 5.65. Essentially the same and not someone we can count on for a good strikeout total.
On the other hand his change ups have the highest rate of being a strike as well as being a swing and miss. The reason it's not getting more strikeouts is it has a high rate of being put in play as well. That isn't a bad thing, but for your fantasy team he won't supply the high strikeout numbers you would like.
This gives us reason to trust his BB/9 though which is at 1.37 and tied for fifth best in all of baseball behind Roy Halladay, Craig Stammen, Jamie Moyer and Doug Fister. Only Halladay has a better K/9 than Braden from that group.
Braden won't be an ace for your team and the perfect game on Sunday was a possible selling point if you want to move him now. If you decide to keep him you have a solid pitcher with good ERA and WHIP numbers although limited in wins and strikeouts.
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