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:
- 0.340 — Yonathan Daza batting against Dallas Keuchel.
- 0.339 — Jose Iglesias batting against Dallas Keuchel.
- 0.327 — C.J. Cron batting against Dallas Keuchel.
- 0.316 — Kyle Farmer batting against Bryse Wilson.
- 0.310 — Brandon Drury batting against Bryse Wilson.
- 0.308 — Charlie Blackmon batting against Dallas Keuchel.
- 0.307 — Brendan Rodgers batting against Dallas Keuchel.
- 0.304 — Tim Anderson batting against Beau Brieske.
- 0.304 — Garrett Cooper batting against Trevor Williams.
- 0.300 — Donovan Solano batting against Bryse Wilson.
- 0.300 — Tyler Naquin batting against Bryse Wilson.
The Pirates and Reds play a doubleheader today, so make sure you pick against the Bryse Wilson start. Daza is turning into a very good Beat the Streak hitter. He usually bats second, so he gets that extra plate appearance. He owns a high batting average with few walks and few strikeouts. Today’s game is in Arizona, but like his home Coors Field, it’s a good place to hit.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.304, 0.737 — Tim Anderson batting against Beau Brieske.
- 0.339, 0.734 — Jose Iglesias batting against Dallas Keuchel.
- 0.340, 0.732 — Yonathan Daza batting against Dallas Keuchel.
- 0.327, 0.713 — C.J. Cron batting against Dallas Keuchel.
- 0.272, 0.712 — Trea Turner batting against Mark Leiter.
- 0.304, 0.710 — Garrett Cooper batting against Trevor Williams.
- 0.284, 0.709 — Luis Robert batting against Beau Brieske.
- 0.293, 0.702 — Luis Garcia batting against Bailey Falter.
- 0.316, 0.700 — Kyle Farmer batting against Bryse Wilson.
- 0.280, 0.696 — Starling Marte batting against Daniel Castano.
Teammates Daza and Iglesias are tied for the consensus top pick. Anderson will try to break the NN’s three game losing streak.
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!