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:
- 0.303 — Luis Arraez batting against Aaron Civale.
- 0.294 — Bo Bichette batting against MacKenzie Gore.
- 0.293 — Jose Altuve batting against Brayan Bello.
- 0.291 — Corey Seager batting against Jose Quintana.
- 0.291 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Luis Ortiz.
- 0.289 — Ronald Acuna batting against Peter Lambert.
- 0.285 — Maikel Garcia batting against Luis Ortiz.
- 0.285 — Julio Rodriguez batting against Ken Waldichuk.
- 0.284 — Freddy Fermin batting against Luis Ortiz.
- 0.281 — Masataka Yoshida batting against J.P. France.
Bichette went for an MRI on Monday, so be sure to check his status before picking him today. A .303 hit average seems low for Arraez. Batters have a tough time getting on base against Civale, with a .228 BA and a .281 OBP against him. With a low K rate, the high amount of contact against Civale has not hurt him. Arraez is just three for 20 against Civale in his career, with three walks and two strikeouts.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.303, 0.751 — Luis Arraez batting against Aaron Civale.
- 0.294, 0.727 — Bo Bichette batting against MacKenzie Gore.
- 0.289, 0.712 — Ronald Acuna batting against Peter Lambert.
- 0.293, 0.710 — Jose Altuve batting against Brayan Bello.
- 0.263, 0.709 — Freddie Freeman batting against Merrill Kelly.
- 0.291, 0.705 — Corey Seager batting against Jose Quintana.
- 0.277, 0.703 — Michael Harris II batting against Peter Lambert.
- 0.281, 0.701 — Masataka Yoshida batting against J.P. France.
- 0.275, 0.700 — Joey Meneses batting against Jose Berrios.
- 0.270, 0.697 — Harold Ramirez batting against Sandy Alcantara.
This may be a day to eschew the top picks and go with Acuna and Altuve, two great hitters in great parks for hitters, both coming off fantastic nights.
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!