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:

• 0.305 — Jeff McNeil batting against Chris Archer.
• 0.305 — Phillip Ervin batting against Peter Lambert.
• 0.304 — Jose Iglesias batting against Peter Lambert.
• 0.300 — Javier Baez batting against Zach Davies.
• 0.299 — Fernando Tatis Jr. batting against Madison Bumgarner.
• 0.298 — Christian Yelich batting against Jose Quintana.
• 0.296 — Michael Brantley batting against Dakota Hudson.
• 0.292 — Jean Segura batting against Kevin Gausman.
• 0.289 — Nick Senzel batting against Peter Lambert.
• 0.289 — Nick Castellanos batting against Matt Wisler.

Ervin does not pop up on this list much. In parts of three seasons with the Reds he owns a .279/.348/.458 slash line. Most of that is based on a hot 2019, his seasonal age 26 season. Lambert is a Rockies rookie with a .321 BABIP against him.

Here are the neural network picks:

• 0.305, 0.754 — Jeff McNeil batting against Chris Archer.
• 0.296, 0.730 — Michael Brantley batting against Dakota Hudson.
• 0.298, 0.724 — Christian Yelich batting against Jose Quintana.
• 0.284, 0.723 — Charlie Blackmon batting against Alex Wood.
• 0.300, 0.720 — Javier Baez batting against Zach Davies.
• 0.299, 0.717 — Fernando Tatis Jr. batting against Madison Bumgarner.
• 0.286, 0.716 — Yulieski Gurriel batting against Dakota Hudson.
• 0.292, 0.715 — Jean Segura batting against Kevin Gausman.
• 0.279, 0.711 — Jose Altuve batting against Dakota Hudson.
• 0.304, 0.708 — Jose Iglesias batting against Peter Lambert.

McNeil comes out on top again. He is dominating the leader board now, and one reason might be his low K rate. He will likely strike out less than 100 times this season. His career BABIP is .366, which means putting the ball in play for him is a very good thing. There is not a clear consensus second choice today.

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