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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:
- 0.268 — Luis Arraez batting against Lance Lynn.
- 0.263 — Giovanny Urshela batting against Adrian Houser.
- 0.256 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Michael Soroka.
- 0.254 — Joey Meneses batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.254 — Brendan Donovan batting against Ryan Weathers.
- 0.254 — Kerry Carpenter batting against Adrian Houser.
- 0.253 — Luis Garcia batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.249 — Salvador Perez batting against Michael Soroka.
- 0.248 — Paul Goldschmidt batting against Ryan Weathers.
- 0.247 — Nolan Arenado batting against Ryan Weathers.
Arraez is off to a poor start this season, with a .185/.333/.222 slash line. He’s getting on base, but usually he does that mostly with hits. His long-term numbers, however, continue to make him the best pick.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.268, 0.710 — Luis Arraez batting against Lance Lynn.
- 0.263, 0.680 — Giovanny Urshela batting against Adrian Houser.
- 0.254, 0.667 — Joey Meneses batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.256, 0.665 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Michael Soroka.
- 0.243, 0.663 — Giovanny Urshela batting against Jose Butto.
- 0.253, 0.661 — Luis Garcia batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.254, 0.659 — Kerry Carpenter batting against Adrian Houser.
- 0.240, 0.657 — Josh Naylor batting against Pablo Lopez.
- 0.254, 0.655 — Brendan Donovan batting against Ryan Weathers.
- 0.241, 0.650 — Steven Kwan batting against Pablo Lopez.
Meneses is a player who I would not expect to appear in the list. He strikes out a ton, but doesn’t walk much. His strength is that when he make contact, his BABIP is very high.
Arraez and Urshela are the consensus double down picks on a day without much action.
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!