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:

• 0.340 — Michael Brantley batting against Mike Leake.
• 0.313 — Jorge Polanco batting against Carlos Carrasco.
• 0.309 — Melky Cabrera batting against Kevin Gausman.
• 0.306 — Josh Reddick batting against Mike Leake.
• 0.299 — Jose Martinez batting against Anthony DeSclafani.
• 0.298 — Yulieski Gurriel batting against Mike Leake.
• 0.296 — Javier Baez batting against German Marquez.
• 0.295 — Jeff McNeil batting against Tyler Beede.
• 0.292 — J.D. Martinez batting against Jakob Junis.
• 0.291 — Eddie Rosario batting against Carlos Carrasco.

Brantley is 4 for 17 career against Leake, a .235 BA. He drew three walks for a .350 OBP, and only struck out once. I noted yesterday that Nolan Arenado had a history of putting the ball in play against Kyle Hendricks. In the first inning Tuesday night, Arenado did just that, hitting a low line drive to the left to Hendricks. Hendricks got a glove on the ball, slowed it down, and Arenado wound up with an infield hit. So don’t be fooled too much by a 4 for 17 in this case.

Here are the neural network picks:

• 0.340, 0.757 — Michael Brantley batting against Mike Leake.
• 0.309, 0.736 — Melky Cabrera batting against Kevin Gausman.
• 0.276, 0.726 — Howie Kendrick batting against Dylan Covey.
• 0.313, 0.723 — Jorge Polanco batting against Carlos Carrasco.
• 0.296, 0.720 — Javier Baez batting against German Marquez.
• 0.292, 0.719 — J.D. Martinez batting against Jakob Junis.
• 0.295, 0.719 — Jeff McNeil batting against Tyler Beede.
• 0.299, 0.718 — Jose Martinez batting against Anthony DeSclafani.
• 0.273, 0.716 — Nolan Arenado batting against Yu Darvish.
• 0.286, 0.710 — Freddie Freeman batting against Joe Musgrove.
• 0.298, 0.710 — Yulieski Gurriel batting against Mike Leake.

The two systems agree that Brantley is far and away the best batter to pick today. Melky Cabrera is the consensus second choice. Cabrera is batting .335 with a .376 OBP, so he gets on base mostly by hits. He also does not strike out much.

I do not guarantee results. Your best pick is going to have about a 25% chance of not getting a hit. Good luck!