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:
- 0.357 — Freddie Freeman batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.328 — Joey Meneses batting against Noah Syndergaard.
- 0.311 — J.D. Martinez batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.302 — Alex Verdugo batting against Luke Weaver.
- 0.300 — Masataka Yoshida batting against Luke Weaver.
- 0.299 — Lane Thomas batting against Noah Syndergaard.
- 0.297 — Luis Garcia batting against Noah Syndergaard.
- 0.296 — Leody Taveras batting against Joey Wentz.
- 0.295 — Luis Arraez batting against Blake Snell.
- 0.295 — Bo Bichette batting against Julio Teheran.
Freeman remains tied with Marcus Semien with an active nineteen game hit streak, the longest in the majors at the moment. Semien ranks 16th on the list with a .289 projected hit average against Wentz. The Nationals and Dodgers looks like it should produce plenty of hits with Corbin and Syndergaard on the mound. Thomas owns a 15 game hit streak, Martinez a 14 game hit streak.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.357, 0.760 — Freddie Freeman batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.295, 0.743 — Luis Arraez batting against Blake Snell.
- 0.328, 0.731 — Joey Meneses batting against Noah Syndergaard.
- 0.295, 0.728 — Bo Bichette batting against Julio Teheran.
- 0.302, 0.710 — Alex Verdugo batting against Luke Weaver.
- 0.293, 0.709 — Giovanny Urshela batting against Lance Lynn.
- 0.284, 0.707 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Dinelson Lamet.
- 0.311, 0.704 — J.D. Martinez batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.278, 0.697 — Nick Castellanos batting against Carlos Carrasco.
- 0.300, 0.697 — Masataka Yoshida batting against Luke Weaver.
- 0.275, 0.691 — Nico Hoerner batting against Zach Eflin.
- 0.297, 0.691 — Luis Garcia batting against Noah Syndergaard.
Freeman beats out Arraez by a good amount here, and in this case it’s due to the quality of the pitchers faced. One should note, however, that Corbin handled Freeman well in their careers. Freeman is 8 for 39 with four walks and 13 strikeouts. That’s a high K rate for Freeman, who doesn’t K much for a slugger.
Freeman and Meneses are the consensus 1-2 picks today, although it’s tough to go wrong doubling down on Arraez.
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!