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:
- 0.289 — Bryan De La Cruz batting against Paolo Espino.
- 0.289 — Ty France batting against Eduardo Rodriguez.
- 0.287 — Michael Brantley batting against Spencer Howard.
- 0.279 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Logan Gilbert.
- 0.277 — Trea Turner batting against Zac Gallen.
- 0.274 — Miguel Rojas batting against Paolo Espino.
- 0.273 — Alex Verdugo batting against Logan Gilbert.
- 0.273 — Ketel Marte batting against Clayton Kershaw.
- 0.272 — Jose Iglesias batting against Logan Gilbert.
- 0.268 — Yulieski Gurriel batting against Spencer Howard.
It’s a credit to the hitting ability of Marte that he pops up on this list despite facing Clayton Kershaw. de la Cruz is having an impressive rookie year so far, slashing .338/.386/.481 in 144 plate appearances.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.287, 0.721 — Michael Brantley batting against Spencer Howard.
- 0.277, 0.716 — Trea Turner batting against Zac Gallen.
- 0.273, 0.713 — Ketel Marte batting against Clayton Kershaw.
- 0.279, 0.694 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Logan Gilbert.
- 0.256, 0.691 — Bo Bichette batting against Drew Rasmussen.
- 0.268, 0.689 — Yulieski Gurriel batting against Spencer Howard.
- 0.289, 0.688 — Bryan De La Cruz batting against Paolo Espino.
- 0.272, 0.688 — Jose Iglesias batting against Logan Gilbert.
- 0.289, 0.688 — Ty France batting against Eduardo Rodriguez.
- 0.273, 0.684 — Alex Verdugo batting against Logan Gilbert.
It’s a similar group in a different order. Brantley is the consensus first pick, Turner the consensus double down choice. Note that all the probabilities are low 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!