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 predicted hit averages against the starting pitcher:
- 0.310 — Connor Wong batting against Casey Mize.
- 0.302 — Adley Rutschman batting against Zack Littell.
- 0.302 — Luis Arraez batting against Cole Ragans.
- 0.301 — Ryan Mountcastle batting against Zack Littell.
- 0.298 — Ezequiel Duran batting against Trevor Rogers.
- 0.298 — Jordan Westburg batting against Zack Littell.
- 0.297 — Corey Seager batting against Trevor Rogers.
- 0.296 — Luis Garcia batting against Carlos Carrasco.
- 0.291 — Marcus Semien batting against Trevor Rogers.
- 0.288 — Rob Refsnyder batting against Casey Mize.
Wong decreased his K percentage from a very high 33.3% in 2023 to 18.9% this season, a reasonable number for the era. He also upped his already high BABIP to .381. The combination led to a 100 point rise in his batting average.
Seager owns a fourteen game hit streak, tied with Kevin Pillar for the current high streak in the majors.
The NN produced this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.302, 0.755 — Luis Arraez batting against Cole Ragans.
- 0.287, 0.702 — Shohei Ohtani batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.278, 0.700 — Harold Ramirez batting against Cole Irvin.
- 0.284, 0.699 — Steven Kwan batting against Jake Irvin.
- 0.310, 0.698 — Connor Wong batting against Casey Mize.
- 0.296, 0.696 — Luis Garcia batting against Carlos Carrasco.
- 0.273, 0.696 — Freddie Freeman batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.281, 0.695 — Mookie Betts batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.301, 0.694 — Ryan Mountcastle batting against Zack Littell.
- 0.280, 0.694 — Alec Bohm batting against Lance Lynn.
Arraez stands as the only player with superb hit averages both short and long term. He stands at .318 hit year and .316 since the start of 2022. He both walks and strikes out very little, and owns a .362 BABIP for the second season in a row. He is the consensus top pick, with Wong the 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!