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.
The Log5 Method yields these top picks:
- 0.287 — Miguel Cabrera batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.286 — Victor Reyes batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.284 — Harold Castro batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.275 — Brandon Crawford batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.273 — Tim Anderson batting against Bailey Ober.
- 0.273 — Jeimer Candelario batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.272 — Willi Castro batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.272 — Jonathan Schoop batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.270 — Trea Turner batting against Nick Martinez.
- 0.270 — Andrew Benintendi batting against Chris Flexen.
- 0.270 — Austin Meadows batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.270 — Brandon Belt batting against Patrick Corbin.
It seems appropriate that Cabrera tops the list on a day when he may reach the 3000 hit milestone. This is more about Senzatela being hittable, however. He comes into the game with a 2.16 ERA despite allowing 16 hits in 8 1/3 innings. Eleven of those hits came with the bases empty.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.273, 0.701 — Tim Anderson batting against Bailey Ober.
- 0.270, 0.695 — Trea Turner batting against Nick Martinez.
- 0.259, 0.676 — Michael Brantley batting against Ross Stripling.
- 0.255, 0.666 — A.J. Pollock batting against Bailey Ober.
- 0.263, 0.666 — Wander Franco batting against Michael Wacha.
- 0.275, 0.664 — Brandon Crawford batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.260, 0.663 — Jose Iglesias batting against Tarik Skubal.
- 0.270, 0.663 — Andrew Benintendi batting against Chris Flexen.
- 0.286, 0.662 — Victor Reyes batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.252, 0.662 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Corey Kluber.
- 0.284, 0.662 — Harold Castro batting against Antonio Senzatela.
Anderson and Turner continue to produce hit probabilities much higher than anyone else. Most of the Tigers fade in the NN. Anderson is the consensus first pick, and it might be a good day to double down on Cabrera.
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!