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:
- 0.372 — Michael Brantley batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.327 — Harold Castro batting against Matt Harvey.
- 0.327 — Yordan Alvarez batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.327 — Jonathan Schoop batting against Matt Harvey.
- 0.325 — Aledmys Diaz batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.319 — Kolten Wong batting against Jake Arrieta.
- 0.317 — Jean Segura batting against David Price.
- 0.314 — Kyle Tucker batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.309 — Tim Anderson batting against Bailey Ober.
- 0.308 — Jose Altuve batting against Antonio Senzatela.
Senzatela pitches in Houston this afternoon with a low K rate and a low walk rate. On top of that, opponents have a high BABIP against him. I’m not surprised the Astros dominate this list.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.372, 0.770 — Michael Brantley batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.309, 0.739 — Tim Anderson batting against Bailey Ober.
- 0.327, 0.729 — Harold Castro batting against Matt Harvey.
- 0.285, 0.728 — Trea Turner batting against Kyle Gibson.
- 0.261, 0.725 — Ketel Marte batting against Kevin Gausman.
- 0.317, 0.723 — Jean Segura batting against David Price.
- 0.327, 0.723 — Jonathan Schoop batting against Matt Harvey.
- 0.327, 0.715 — Yordan Alvarez batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.298, 0.713 — Buster Posey batting against Merrill Kelly.
- 0.325, 0.707 — Aledmys Diaz batting against Antonio Senzatela.
Brantley tops both lists and his .770 probability of a hit is one of the highest this season. Castro is the consensus second pick.
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!