For the past few years Baseball Musings tried to help with playing Beat the Streak. MLB is not offering the game during the short 2020 season, but people indicated they can still use the data. 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.

Here are the Log5 Method picks:

• 0.290 — Whit Merrifield batting against Ivan Nova.
• 0.283 — Jeff McNeil batting against Martin Perez.
• 0.274 — David Fletcher batting against Marco Gonzales.
• 0.274 — Amed Rosario batting against Martin Perez.
• 0.273 — Wilson Ramos batting against Martin Perez.
• 0.272 — J.D. Davis batting against Martin Perez.
• 0.266 — Hanser Alberto batting against J.A. Happ.
• 0.265 — DJ LeMahieu batting against John Means.
• 0.264 — Jose Iglesias batting against J.A. Happ.
• 0.261 — Robinson Cano batting against Martin Perez.
• 0.261 — Ketel Marte batting against Ross Stripling.
• 0.261 — Anthony Rendon batting against Marco Gonzales.

It looks like this should be a good day for the Mets.

Here are the NN picks:

• 0.290, 0.703 — Whit Merrifield batting against Ivan Nova.
• 0.283, 0.694 — Jeff McNeil batting against Martin Perez.
• 0.265, 0.688 — DJ LeMahieu batting against John Means.
• 0.266, 0.688 — Hanser Alberto batting against J.A. Happ.
• 0.274, 0.677 — David Fletcher batting against Marco Gonzales.
• 0.264, 0.676 — Jose Iglesias batting against J.A. Happ.
• 0.256, 0.675 — Corey Dickerson batting against John Means.
• 0.254, 0.675 — Howie Kendrick batting against Hyun-Jin Ryu.
• 0.261, 0.673 — Ketel Marte batting against Ross Stripling.
• 0.273, 0.672 — Wilson Ramos batting against Martin Perez.
• 0.274, 0.672 — Amed Rosario batting against Martin Perez.

Merrifield and Alberto both own .306 batting averages since the start of the 2019 season. They get their differently, as Merrifield strikes out much more often than Alberto. Merrifield needs a higher BABIP to support that batting average, and his much greater power speaks to that. Merrifield also walks more, with a high OBP.

Merrifield and McNeil are the consensus 1-2 picks today.

You can follow the NN results on this spreadsheet. I do not guarantee results. Your best pick is going to have about a 25% chance of not getting a hit. Good luck!