This Week In JunkStats: Week 3

After a huge week for Dumb Luck Wins in week 2, this week was very quiet. Also in this post: Tough Luck Losses and the year’s first Pitcher Fatigue Factor standings.

Last week, there were 8 Dumb Luck Wins, which is a ton. This week, though, there was only one–by Yovani Gallardo last night. That brings the DLW% down a bit, though we’re still on pace to tie the all-time record.

This Week in Dumb Luck Wins

# of DLWs this week: 1
DLW% this week: 1.4% (1 out of 72 starter wins)
DLWs so far in 2011: 14 (out of 208 starter wins, 6.7%)
On pace for: 117 (The most DLWs in a year is… 117, in 2006.)

Here is the info for this week’s only DLW:

Five of this year’s 14 DLWs have been against the Astros. The Astros themselves have not had a DLW. So I’m guessing that they’ve had a lot of high-scoring games, and lost most of them.

Unlike DLWs, which have vacillated wildly from week to week, Tough Luck Losses have remained steady. There have been exactly 3 in each of the first 3 weeks of the season.

This Week in Tough Luck Losses

# of TLLs this week: 3
TLL% this week: 4.2% (3 out of 72 starter losses)
TLLs so far in 2011: 9 (out of 203 starter losses, 4.4%)
On pace for: 75 (There were 85 TLLs in 2010.)

Here are all of this week’s TLLs:

I’m actually kind of surprised that every game between the A’s and Mariners doesn’t end with a pitcher getting a Tough Luck Loss.

This Week in Another Junk Stat: PFF

Each week, I’ll update you on one of the other Junk Stats. This week, it’s PFF (Pitcher Fatigue Factor). This is simply the number of pitches a player has seen divided by the number of outs he’s made, adjusted to the league average. 100 is average, and each point above/below that is equal to one percent above/below average.

Here are the top 15 players in PFF so far (minimum 60 PA, through 4/22). All have made pitchers work at least 25% harder than average to get each out. For reference, I’ve also included each player’s Pitches/Out and Pitches/PA. The MLB average is 5.54 Pitches/Out and 3.84 Pitches/PA.

Matt Holliday has been unbelievable this year. Through 3 weeks, he’s made pitchers throw 72% more pitches than average to get him out–that’s 4 more pitches per out. Nobody else is even close, and only 2 players are within 30 points of his PFF. The gap between Holliday and the 5th-place batter, Daric Barton, is as great as the gap between Barton and the league average.

It’s interesting that the two Rockies on the list are Fowler and Herrera, and not the more well-known names like Troy Tulowitzki or Carlos Gonzalez (both of whom, especially CarGo, don’t work the count that much).

A few slumping players make the list, most notably David Wright. He hasn’t hit well in 2011, but he has contributed by making opposing pitchers work. He’s seen more Pitches/PA than anyone, and is second only to Howie Kendrick in total pitches seen (Kendrick has 9 more PA).

And here are the bottom 10 in PFF:

Many of these players are not surprising. Guerrero and Tejada have always been free swingers, and now they can’t even hit very well. Betancourt is always in the bottom 10 in this metric, and his teammate Carlos Gomez seems likely to join him every year. The most interesting name on this list is Robinson Cano, who had an MVP-caliber year in 2010 but has really struggled–especially with his patience–in 2011. The Yankees need him to get back on track.

Come back next week for more JunkStats updates.