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:

• 0.312 — Daniel Santana batting against Matt Wisler.
• 0.308 — David Fletcher batting against Daniel Norris.
• 0.305 — Andrelton Simmons batting against Daniel Norris.
• 0.302 — Rafael Devers batting against Andrew Kittredge.
• 0.301 — Javier Baez batting against Miles Mikolas.
• 0.301 — Shohei Ohtani batting against Daniel Norris.
• 0.296 — Christian Yelich batting against Brett Anderson.
• 0.295 — Whit Merrifield batting against Jacob Waguespack.
• 0.294 — Brian Goodwin batting against Daniel Norris.
• 0.292 — Ramon Laureano batting against Jordan Lyles.

Norris isn’t a terrible pitcher, but he does allow a high number of hits with few walks. Many of the Angels on this list, especially Simmons, share that quality. Fletcher, Ohtani, and Goodwin all walk enough to own fine OBPs, but Simmons is all about the hits.

Here are the neural network picks:

• 0.312, 0.733 — Daniel Santana batting against Matt Wisler.
• 0.264, 0.733 — Jeff McNeil batting against Lucas Giolito.
• 0.302, 0.730 — Rafael Devers batting against Andrew Kittredge.
• 0.287, 0.729 — Howie Kendrick batting against Michael Soroka.
• 0.283, 0.728 — Charlie Blackmon batting against Hyun-Jin Ryu.
• 0.296, 0.726 — Christian Yelich batting against Brett Anderson.
• 0.284, 0.723 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Zack Greinke.
• 0.295, 0.720 — Whit Merrifield batting against Jacob Waguespack.
• 0.301, 0.719 — Javier Baez batting against Miles Mikolas.
• 0.308, 0.718 — David Fletcher batting against Daniel Norris.

McNeil finally faces a pitcher capable of knocking him off the top spot. Giolito’s hit averages work out to .190 for this season and .201 for the last three seasons. The league average is .229. Santana is the unanimous first choice, with Devers the consensus second choice.

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