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:
- 0.326 — Luis Arraez batting against Bryce Miller.
- 0.309 — Ronald Acuna batting against Tyler Alexander.
- 0.306 — Salvador Perez batting against Luke Weaver.
- 0.301 — Matt M Duffy batting against Luke Weaver.
- 0.300 — Orlando Arcia batting against Tyler Alexander.
- 0.288 — Harold Ramirez batting against James Kaprielian.
- 0.286 — Matt McLain batting against Zack Greinke.
- 0.284 — Corey Seager batting against Tyler Anderson.
- 0.284 — T.J. Friedl batting against Zack Greinke.
- 0.282 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Luke Weaver.
There are only eight games on Monday, and the Royals look good as Weaver owns a .326 opposition BABIP this season and .327 for his career. The rookie McLain already shows an ability to hit triples, and Kansas City is one of the best parks in the majors for that category of hit.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.326, 0.769 — Luis Arraez batting against Bryce Miller.
- 0.288, 0.708 — Harold Ramirez batting against James Kaprielian.
- 0.306, 0.701 — Salvador Perez batting against Luke Weaver.
- 0.275, 0.700 — Giovanny Urshela batting against Dane Dunning.
- 0.273, 0.700 — Nick Castellanos batting against Tommy Henry.
- 0.301, 0.697 — Matt M Duffy batting against Luke Weaver.
- 0.274, 0.688 — Alex Verdugo batting against Connor Seabold.
- 0.275, 0.687 — Wander Franco batting against James Kaprielian.
- 0.284, 0.686 — Corey Seager batting against Tyler Anderson.
- 0.251, 0.685 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Matt Strahm.
Arraez tries to extend his hitting streak to nine games, and get his batting average back over .400. He’s the only player today with a very high probability of a hit. Perez is the consensus double down choice.
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!