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:
- 0.349 — Alec Bohm batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.330 — Jean Segura batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.330 — Ketel Marte batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.325 — Nick Castellanos batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.324 — Josh Rojas batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.323 — Alek Thomas batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.321 — Jake McCarthy batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.315 — Tim Anderson batting against Dane Dunning.
- 0.314 — Rafael Devers batting against Daniel Lynch.
- 0.310 — Emmanuel Rivera batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.310 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Dylan Bundy.
It’s a good day to pick from the Phillies or the Diamondbacks as two pitcher who allow a high number of hits face those batters. Note that there are two doubleheaders scheduled for Saturday, the Braves at the Mets and the Angels at the Mariners.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.315, 0.741 — Tim Anderson batting against Dane Dunning.
- 0.349, 0.734 — Alec Bohm batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.308, 0.729 — Luis Robert batting against Dane Dunning.
- 0.314, 0.725 — Rafael Devers batting against Daniel Lynch.
- 0.310, 0.720 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Dylan Bundy.
- 0.306, 0.718 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Daniel Lynch.
- 0.330, 0.717 — Jean Segura batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.282, 0.715 — Jose Iglesias batting against Merrill Kelly.
- 0.294, 0.712 — Paul Goldschmidt batting against Domingo German.
- 0.325, 0.711 — Nick Castellanos batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.267, 0.711 — Trea Turner batting against Michael Clevinger.
Bohm is the consensus first pick with Segura and Anderson tied for consensus second pick.
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!