For the past few 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.
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:
- 0.293 — Justin Turner batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.287 — Corey Seager batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.281 — Starling Marte batting against Max Fried.
- 0.278 — Mookie Betts batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.271 — Nelson Cruz batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.271 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Hyun-Jin Ryu.
- 0.269 — Luis Arraez batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.269 — Miguel Rojas batting against Max Fried.
- 0.268 — Corey Dickerson batting against Max Fried.
- 0.264 — A.J. Pollock batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.264 — Michael Brantley batting against Matt Boyd.
Turner and Seager play at home, and Senzatela, since the start of 2019, allows a batting average about 20 points lower on the road.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.271, 0.701 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Hyun-Jin Ryu.
- 0.293, 0.696 — Justin Turner batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.269, 0.690 — Luis Arraez batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.287, 0.689 — Corey Seager batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.271, 0.689 — Nelson Cruz batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.264, 0.684 — Michael Brantley batting against Matt Boyd.
- 0.249, 0.683 — Jose Iglesias batting against Daniel Duffy.
- 0.281, 0.682 — Starling Marte batting against Max Fried.
- 0.261, 0.681 — Donovan Solano batting against Luis Castillo.
- 0.258, 0.678 — Xander Bogaerts batting against J.A. Happ.
- 0.256, 0.678 — Whit Merrifield batting against Dylan Bundy.
Watching the Yankees at Blue Jays last night, the New York announcers think something is off with LeMahieu. At this point it’s more likely a small sample size, but he should be a good pick on any day. Justin Turner is the consensus first choice, however, with Seager the consensus double down choice.
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!
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