For the past two years Baseball Musings tried to help with playing Beat the Streak. The Day by Day Database keeps track of hit streak of at least five games. In addition, two programs produce top ten lists of players with a high probability of a hit. If you find this useful, please support Baseball Musings with a donation.
Here are the top picks my programs produced for use in Beat the Streak. This post mostly explains the ideas behind the calculations. In addition, this post shows tests on the Neural Network (NN). This post discusses an NN that includes the ballpark. I updated the models, and the results of those tests are here.
First, the Log5 Method picks:
- 0.334 — Cody Bellinger batting against Nick Pivetta.
- 0.322 — Whit Merrifield batting against Adrian Sampson.
- 0.315 — David Fletcher batting against Marco Gonzales.
- 0.310 — Justin Turner batting against Nick Pivetta.
- 0.307 — Adalberto Mondesi batting against Adrian Sampson.
- 0.302 — Melky Cabrera batting against Zach Davies.
- 0.301 — Alex Verdugo batting against Nick Pivetta.
- 0.300 — Hunter Dozier batting against Adrian Sampson.
- 0.297 — Javier Baez batting against Adam Wainwright.
- 0.294 — Tommy La Stella batting against Marco Gonzales.
Bellinger stands as the best hitter in the game right now, batting .379 on the season. The opposition hits .334 against Pivetta, so this is a great match for extending the streak.
Here are the neural network picks:
0.334, 0.734 — Cody Bellinger batting against Nick Pivetta.
0.322, 0.731 — Whit Merrifield batting against Adrian Sampson.
0.302, 0.731 — Melky Cabrera batting against Zach Davies.
0.315, 0.728 — David Fletcher batting against Marco Gonzales.
0.287, 0.727 — Nolan Arenado batting against Aaron Sanchez.
0.297, 0.719 — Javier Baez batting against Adam Wainwright.
0.310, 0.719 — Justin Turner batting against Nick Pivetta.
0.266, 0.713 — Howie Kendrick batting against Sonny Gray.
0.307, 0.709 — Adalberto Mondesi batting against Adrian Sampson.
0.251, 0.707 — Michael Brantley batting against Chris Bassitt.
The two systems agree on the top two picks, Bellinger and Merrifield, and the top ten are very similar today.
I do not guarantee results. Your best pick is going to have about a 25% chance of not getting a hit. Good luck!