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:
- 0.297 — Nelson Cruz batting against Jose Quintana.
- 0.291 — Ronald Acuna batting against Trevor Williams.
- 0.290 — Luis Arraez batting against Jose Quintana.
- 0.290 — Byron Buxton batting against Jose Quintana.
- 0.281 — Whit Merrifield batting against Tom Milone.
- 0.277 — Tim Anderson batting against Nick Pivetta.
- 0.273 — Whit Merrifield batting against Steven Matz.
- 0.273 — Hanser Alberto batting against Tom Milone.
- 0.267 — Starling Marte batting against Aaron Sanchez.
- 0.265 — Hanser Alberto batting against Steven Matz.
The Blue Jays and Royals play a double header today, each scheduled to be a seven inning game. That could reduce the number of times a batter comes to the plate in a game, lowering the probability of at least one hit. The Mets and Rockies also play a double header, but none of them are in the top ten.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.277, 0.717 — Tim Anderson batting against Nick Pivetta.
- 0.297, 0.709 — Nelson Cruz batting against Jose Quintana.
- 0.290, 0.704 — Luis Arraez batting against Jose Quintana.
- 0.281, 0.702 — Whit Merrifield batting against Tom Milone.
- 0.273, 0.697 — Whit Merrifield batting against Steven Matz.
- 0.273, 0.695 — Hanser Alberto batting against Tom Milone.
- 0.265, 0.691 — Hanser Alberto batting against Steven Matz.
- 0.290, 0.691 — Byron Buxton batting against Jose Quintana.
- 0.262, 0.687 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Dylan Cease.
- 0.291, 0.686 — Ronald Acuna batting against Trevor Williams.
Anderson is off the disabled list, which returns him to the top of the NN list. Nelson Cruz, however, is the consensus first pick. Cruz is putting the ball in play to great effect this season, with a .390/.426/.732 slash line. His BABIP stands at .400, and he lowered his strikeout rate a tad, from a career average of 22.7% to 19.1% this season.
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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