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:
- 0.273 — Luis Arraez batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.259 — Josh Naylor batting against Ross Stripling.
- 0.255 — Bo Bichette batting against Aaron Civale.
- 0.254 — Masataka Yoshida batting against George Kirby.
- 0.254 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Cal Quantrill.
- 0.253 — Freddie Freeman batting against Zack Thompson.
- 0.252 — Yandy Diaz batting against Chris Bassitt.
- 0.250 — Jose Ramirez batting against Ross Stripling.
- 0.250 — Gabriel Moreno batting against Cal Quantrill.
- 0.249 — Steven Kwan batting against Ross Stripling.
- 0.249 — Mookie Betts batting against Zack Thompson.
Everyone is going to be pretty close for 2024, as the current MLB hit average is still the best guess for everyone. So this list is based mostly on the two previous seasons and a little bit of 2024. After an 0 for 6 on opening day, Arraez is due.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.273, 0.716 — Luis Arraez batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.255, 0.683 — Bo Bichette batting against Aaron Civale.
- 0.253, 0.680 — Freddie Freeman batting against Zack Thompson.
- 0.252, 0.677 — Yandy Diaz batting against Chris Bassitt.
- 0.245, 0.671 — Harold Ramirez batting against Chris Bassitt.
- 0.259, 0.669 — Josh Naylor batting against Ross Stripling.
- 0.254, 0.667 — Masataka Yoshida batting against George Kirby.
- 0.254, 0.662 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Cal Quantrill.
- 0.244, 0.658 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Kyle Harrison.
- 0.249, 0.658 — Mookie Betts batting against Zack Thompson.
Keep your eye on Naylor this year as a Beat the Streak regular. He plays at the peak seasonal age of 27, and last year he brought a low K rate and a low walk rate even lower while increasing his BABIP. Like Arraez, he puts the ball in play, and last year lots of good things happened.
Note that with very little data for 2024, the probabilities are going to be low. As the best hitters of the year shake out, you’ll see those rise.
Arraez stands as the agreed top pick. Bichette comes in as 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!