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:
- 0.288 — Paul Goldschmidt batting against Jose Urena.
- 0.287 — Luis Arraez batting against Zack Wheeler.
- 0.283 — Nolan Arenado batting against Jose Urena.
- 0.276 — Freddie Freeman batting against Alex Cobb.
- 0.273 — Donovan Solano batting against Lucas Giolito.
- 0.271 — Bo Bichette batting against Eduardo Rodriguez.
- 0.268 — Tommy Edman batting against Jose Urena.
- 0.266 — Jordan Walker batting against Jose Urena.
- 0.266 — Christian Vazquez batting against Lucas Giolito.
- 0.265 — Adley Rutschman batting against Ken Waldichuk.
The Log5 Method doesn’t look at ballparks, but the Coors effect on Urena is enough to lift a number of Cardinals into the top ten. Goldschmidt is hitting .350. He cut down on his strikeouts this season, but eleven of his 14 hits have gone for singles. He’s become a good player to extend a hit streak.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.287, 0.725 — Luis Arraez batting against Zack Wheeler.
- 0.288, 0.707 — Paul Goldschmidt batting against Jose Urena.
- 0.276, 0.702 — Freddie Freeman batting against Alex Cobb.
- 0.271, 0.700 — Bo Bichette batting against Eduardo Rodriguez.
- 0.283, 0.694 — Nolan Arenado batting against Jose Urena.
- 0.246, 0.690 — Luis Robert batting against Sonny Gray.
- 0.263, 0.686 — Nico Hoerner batting against Logan Gilbert.
- 0.264, 0.682 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting against Eduardo Rodriguez.
- 0.273, 0.680 — Donovan Solano batting against Lucas Giolito.
- 0.256, 0.678 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Tylor Megill.
The NN does account for the park but still flips Arraez and Goldschmidt. Arraez currently needs an 0 for 15 to fall below .400. They are tied for the consensus top pick. Arraez has no history against Wheeler, Goldschmidt is two for five against Urena, so not much help in the match-ups.
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!