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 yield these top picks:
- 0.307 — Nico Hoerner batting against Bailey Falter.
- 0.305 — Trea Turner batting against Alex Cobb.
- 0.297 — Manny Machado batting against Carlos Carrasco.
- 0.297 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Brayan Bello.
- 0.295 — Freddie Freeman batting against Alex Cobb.
- 0.291 — Tim Anderson batting against Shane Bieber.
- 0.290 — Joey Wendle batting against Mitch Keller.
- 0.289 — Alec Bohm batting against Drew Smyly.
- 0.285 — Garrett Cooper batting against Mitch Keller.
- 0.284 — Eric Hosmer batting against Carlos Carrasco.
Hoerner made an interesting shift in offense this season. In his first three seasons he walked 32 times and struck out 60 times in 378 PA. That works out to 8% walks and 16% strikeouts. So far in 2022, Hoerner walked 12 times and struck out 31 times in 301 PA. That works out to 4% walks and 10% strikeouts. He’s made an effort to put the ball in play more. It hurt his OBP a little; it’s down from .342 the previous three season to .339 this year, but raised his batting average from .272 to .303. It really raises his probability of getting a hit, which is what beat the streak is all about. There’s also a significant rise in his slugging percentage.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.305, 0.730 — Trea Turner batting against Alex Cobb.
- 0.291, 0.726 — Tim Anderson batting against Shane Bieber.
- 0.307, 0.718 — Nico Hoerner batting against Bailey Falter.
- 0.278, 0.717 — Luis Arraez batting against Rony Garcia.
- 0.297, 0.716 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Brayan Bello.
- 0.295, 0.709 — Freddie Freeman batting against Alex Cobb.
- 0.276, 0.702 — Paul Goldschmidt batting against Tyler Mahle.
- 0.281, 0.702 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Ross Stripling.
- 0.297, 0.696 — Manny Machado batting against Carlos Carrasco.
- 0.263, 0.692 — Jose Iglesias batting against Eric Lauer.
- 0.282, 0.692 — Alejandro Kirk batting against Brayan Bello.
Turner is currently riding a ten-game hit streak during which he’s hitting .349/.364/.674. It includes four home runs. Turner beats out Hoerner for the consensus first pick, with Hoerner the double down choice. Anderson hits .265 against Bieber in 34 PA. That’s his hit average, also, as all 34 PA were also ABs. With no walks against Bieber, Anderson K’d 10 times.
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!