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 starting pitchers:
- 0.329 — Luis Arraez batting against Brandon Pfaadt.
- 0.298 — Amed Rosario batting against Cole Irvin.
- 0.291 — Adley Rutschman batting against Aaron Civale.
- 0.287 — Otto Lopez batting against Logan Allen.
- 0.286 — Harold Ramirez batting against Cole Irvin.
- 0.285 — Jeremy Pena batting against Griffin Canning.
- 0.281 — Luis Rengifo batting against Framber Valdez.
- 0.281 — Jose Altuve batting against Griffin Canning.
- 0.279 — Steven Kwan batting against Ryan Weathers.
- 0.279 — Ryan O’Hearn batting against Aaron Civale.
Lopez is a new name on the list. He replaced Arraez at second base for the Marlins and is hitting .295/.324/.421 on the season. A high batting average with few walks leads to a great hit average, and Lopez is getting that done. The main difference with Arraez is that Lopez strikes out a lot more.
The NN generates this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.329, 0.766 — Luis Arraez batting against Brandon Pfaadt.
- 0.298, 0.707 — Amed Rosario batting against Cole Irvin.
- 0.286, 0.703 — Harold Ramirez batting against Cole Irvin.
- 0.279, 0.702 — Steven Kwan batting against Ryan Weathers.
- 0.281, 0.694 — Jose Altuve batting against Griffin Canning.
- 0.281, 0.689 — Luis Rengifo batting against Framber Valdez.
- 0.285, 0.689 — Jeremy Pena batting against Griffin Canning.
- 0.291, 0.687 — Adley Rutschman batting against Aaron Civale.
- 0.279, 0.683 — Ryan O’Hearn batting against Aaron Civale.
- 0.275, 0.683 — Mauricio Dubon batting against Griffin Canning.
The two list agree on the top, with Arraez and Rosario the unanimous double down choices. Irvin allows a ton of balls in play, and Rosario doesn’t walk much, so this might be a very good matchup. It’s a very small sample, but Rosario is four for six against Irvin with three doubles, no walks, and no strikeouts.
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!