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:
- 0.318 — Bo Bichette batting against Kyle Bradish.
- 0.310 — Alex Verdugo batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.306 — Masataka Yoshida batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.294 — Jarren Duran batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.294 — Justin Turner batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.294 — Harold Ramirez batting against Luis Medina.
- 0.292 — Christian Arroyo batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.292 — Raimel Tapia batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.291 — Rafael Devers batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.290 — Reese McGuire batting against Austin Gomber.
It looks like the Red Sox should have a good night against Gomber. Note, however, that he is a better pitcher on the road, with a .270/.363/.461 slash line versus a .346/.397/.673 at home. He only struck out 39 batters in 60 2/3 innings, and his K rate is low on the road as well.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.287, 0.746 — Luis Arraez batting against Luis Castillo.
- 0.318, 0.740 — Bo Bichette batting against Kyle Bradish.
- 0.294, 0.717 — Harold Ramirez batting against Luis Medina.
- 0.280, 0.711 — Freddie Freeman batting against Michael Clevinger.
- 0.310, 0.709 — Alex Verdugo batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.284, 0.701 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Ranger Suarez.
- 0.263, 0.699 — Joey Meneses batting against Framber Valdez.
- 0.306, 0.694 — Masataka Yoshida batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.289, 0.693 — T.J. Friedl batting against Daniel Lynch.
- 0.289, 0.692 — Corey Seager batting against Reid Detmers.
Arraez went two games in a row without a hit, reducing his BA to .382 and his hit average to .347. That, of course, is still fantastic. Castillo limits hits, however. He allowed a .202 hit average this season versus a league average of .221.
Bichette stands as the consensus top pick, with Verdugo 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!
I ??? that the R is missing in the title thus it reads “Beat the Steak” picks. I was all set to expect stats on which cut of beef players were chowing down after games etc. LoL Maybe that too will become some type of stat but until my RBI turns into a Rib-Eye I will just carry on.
I need to get more sleep. 🙂