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:
- 0.343 — Tim Anderson batting against Dylan Bundy.
- 0.342 — Garrett Cooper batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.330 — Trea Turner batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.314 — Luis Arraez batting against Johnny Cueto.
- 0.312 — Joey Wendle batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.312 — Luis Garcia batting against Braxton Garrett.
- 0.311 — Manny Machado batting against Chris Flexen.
- 0.308 — Luis Robert batting against Dylan Bundy.
- 0.305 — Josh Bell batting against Braxton Garrett.
- 0.303 — Freddie Freeman batting against Kyle Freeland.
Anderson faced Bundy eighteen times with five hits, but no walks or extra-base hits. He also struck out six times. There’s a bit of a mixed bag in this prediction. You could also go all in on the Luises.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.343, 0.764 — Tim Anderson batting against Dylan Bundy.
- 0.330, 0.749 — Trea Turner batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.314, 0.736 — Luis Arraez batting against Johnny Cueto.
- 0.342, 0.735 — Garrett Cooper batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.308, 0.721 — Luis Robert batting against Dylan Bundy.
- 0.311, 0.713 — Manny Machado batting against Chris Flexen.
- 0.312, 0.709 — Luis Garcia batting against Braxton Garrett.
- 0.303, 0.708 — Freddie Freeman batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.301, 0.706 — Amed Rosario batting against Alex Faedo.
- 0.297, 0.705 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Cole Irvin.
The two systems are in excellent agreement today, with Anderson the top pick and Trea Turner the consensus second choice. May they both light up the sky for the July 4th picks!
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!