Brewers Defense Has Been Good So Far?

The Brewers currently have the 5th best DER (defense efficieny ratio) in the majors but what does that really tell us? In this Hardball Times article, Dave Studeman tries to break down the contribution to DER from pitching and fielding by looking at ball-in-play types. If pitchers are giving up fewer line drives than expected, than they would get the credit for allowing easier balls to field, for instance. He also broke down the fielding contribution in terms of grounders and flyballs:

Team         Pit     Fld            Grnd     Air
STL         -7.1    24.9            22.2     2.7
CHN          6.5    21.6             7.5    14.1
DET          6.4    16.9            21.9    -5.0
SF          -6.3    13.2             6.6     6.7
MIL          5.0    10.0            11.8    -1.8

It's nice to see that grounders have been converted into outs so efficiently so far. Let's hope the Crew can keep that up.