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:
- 0.272 — Miguel Rojas batting against Aaron Sanchez.
- 0.271 — Michael Brantley batting against Alex Cobb.
- 0.270 — Corey Dickerson batting against Aaron Sanchez.
- 0.269 — J.D. Davis batting against Trevor Williams.
- 0.266 — Brandon Nimmo batting against Trevor Williams.
- 0.266 — Harold Castro batting against Mitch Keller.
- 0.263 — Jeff McNeil batting against Trevor Williams.
- 0.263 — James McCann batting against Trevor Williams.
- 0.262 — Dominic Smith batting against Trevor Williams.
- 0.261 — David Peralta batting against Jeff Hoffman.
Since 2019, Rojas performed in a manner that would make him a good candidate for a long hit streak. He posts a high BA without too many walks or strikeouts. This season he’s walking a bit more, but striking out less, so on a day with few games, he can pop to to the top.
Note that a number of Mets hitters make the list, and Williams long term gives up a lot of hits.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.257, 0.696 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Aaron Civale.
- 0.271, 0.687 — Michael Brantley batting against Alex Cobb.
- 0.247, 0.682 — Jose Iglesias batting against Cristian Javier.
- 0.257, 0.682 — Donovan Solano batting against Daniel Castano.
- 0.272, 0.677 — Miguel Rojas batting against Aaron Sanchez.
- 0.234, 0.677 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Justin Dunn.
- 0.249, 0.673 — Justin Turner batting against Ryan Weathers.
- 0.270, 0.672 — Corey Dickerson batting against Aaron Sanchez.
- 0.266, 0.671 — Harold Castro batting against Mitch Keller.
- 0.245, 0.667 — Giovanny Urshela batting against Aaron Civale.
This is a somewhat different list, with Yankees substituted for Mets. LeMahieu comes to the top due to his high long-term hit average. Brantley, however is the consensus first pick, with Rojas the consensus double down. Note that the probabilites are very low today, you just might want to skip the day.
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!