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:
- 0.344 — Ty France batting against Jose Urquidy.
- 0.339 — Rafael Devers batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.332 — J.D. Martinez batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.320 — Jose Iglesias batting against Aaron Sanchez.
- 0.319 — C.J. Cron batting against Aaron Sanchez.
- 0.318 — Yonathan Daza batting against Aaron Sanchez.
- 0.313 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.308 — J.P. Crawford batting against Jose Urquidy.
- 0.300 — Tyler Stephenson batting against Alex Wood.
- 0.298 — Jeff McNeil batting against Zach Eflin.
- 0.298 — Trea Turner batting against Merrill Kelly.
The Rockies and Nationals play a doubleheader to make up for Friday’s rainout. Sanchez is scheduled for the noon game, so get your Colorado picks in early. The Orioles also play a doubleheader against the Red Sox, and Lyles pitches the noon start as well.
France at the top is a nice example of Log5 agreeing with the observed data. France should hit Urquidy well according to the calculation, and France is five for eleven against the Houston starter for a .455 BA with no walks and two strikeouts. France puts the ball in play against this pitcher.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.296, 0.745 — Tim Anderson batting against Keegan Thompson.
- 0.339, 0.745 — Rafael Devers batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.332, 0.738 — J.D. Martinez batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.344, 0.733 — Ty France batting against Jose Urquidy.
- 0.298, 0.725 — Trea Turner batting against Merrill Kelly.
- 0.313, 0.720 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.293, 0.718 — Rafael Devers batting against Denyi Reyes.
- 0.320, 0.718 — Jose Iglesias batting against Aaron Sanchez.
- 0.286, 0.711 — J.D. Martinez batting against Denyi Reyes.
- 0.318, 0.708 — Yonathan Daza batting against Aaron Sanchez.
Anderson just missed the NN top ten. Note that the sort goes out more decimal places that the rounded numbers show, so Anderson likely has a slightly higher probability than Devers, but Devers is the consensus first pick, with France the consensus double down choice. Trea Turner tries to extend his hit streak to twenty games.
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!