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:
- 0.332 — Buster Posey batting against Jake Arrieta.
- 0.331 — Michael Brantley batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.327 — Brandon Crawford batting against Jake Arrieta.
- 0.316 — Evan Longoria batting against Jake Arrieta.
- 0.312 — Yulieski Gurriel batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.311 — Steven Duggar batting against Jake Arrieta.
- 0.307 — Wilmer Flores batting against Jake Arrieta.
- 0.305 — Kris Bryant batting against Jake Arrieta.
- 0.302 — Thairo Estrada batting against Jake Arrieta.
- 0.302 — Kyle Tucker batting against Jordan Lyles.
It’s all Giants and Astros this evening according to Log5. Arrieta owns the second highest BA allowed in the majors this season, minimum of 375 batters faced. Lyles is in the top 20.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.331, 0.745 — Michael Brantley batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.292, 0.728 — Trea Turner batting against Luke Weaver.
- 0.332, 0.719 — Buster Posey batting against Jake Arrieta.
- 0.312, 0.716 — Yulieski Gurriel batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.291, 0.715 — Starling Marte batting against Jackson Kowar.
- 0.292, 0.712 — Luis Robert batting against Packy Naughton.
- 0.293, 0.712 — Nick Castellanos batting against Dillon Peters.
- 0.327, 0.709 — Brandon Crawford batting against Jake Arrieta.
- 0.293, 0.708 — Jean Segura batting against Adrian Sampson.
- 0.291, 0.704 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Tyler Anderson.
Brantley is currently day to day with a knee injury, so watch the lineups for him. He is the consensus first pick, with Posey the consensus second pick. Of course, the Giants might rest the catcher on any given night.
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!