Ryan Braun - 1 month later

Ryan Braun has been up to the bigs playing 1st base for a little over a month now. He quickly settled into the 3rd spot in the lineup and has preformed quite well. Let's take a look at his numbers and compare them to other notables:

Braun:
36 games
.347 avg/.385 OBP/.626 SLG/1.011 OPS for a .279 Isolated Power.
He is 8/9 on SB attempts.

Hunter Pence:
Probably the NL rookie of the year right now, Pence is pretty much in the exact boat as Braun, except he has done it for 25 more games.
60 games
.356/.374/.598/.972 for a .252 ISO Power
7/11 on SB attempts.

Fantasy wise, you can hardly go wrong with either of these two guys on your team - especially because you probably picked them up for free, depending upon your league format.

Predicting the future performance:
Neither of these two are going to finish with numbers like what they have now. For example, Braun's BABIP which is the batting average for balls in play is .394. That suggests that to this point, he has been a bit lucky when he hits the ball. Expect his average to drop when that drops when, for example, the spray charts tell opposing teams where exactly to position their defense.

Regardless, Braun has a very strong pedigree when it comes to hitting and any potential slumps he may go through likely won't be prolonged. For fantasy, I would not sell high unless you have another top 7 3B or unless you are selling him for a very good player. As a Brewer fan, I would endorse a jersey purchase for the man because there are 5 more years of hitting at similar levels.