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 high hit average predictions against starting pitchers:
- 0.397 — Luis Arraez batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.328 — Jurickson Profar batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.324 — Donovan Solano batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.319 — Fernando Tatis Jr. batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.315 — William Contreras batting against Casey Mize.
- 0.313 — Masyn Winn batting against Ryan Feltner.
- 0.312 — Alec Burleson batting against Ryan Feltner.
- 0.312 — Jackson Merrill batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.307 — Luis Rengifo batting against Hunter Brown.
- 0.304 — Manny Machado batting against Ryne Nelson.
It looks like a good day for the Padres against Nelson. He is a low K, low walk pitcher who allowed 64 hits in 48 innings this season and 232 hits in 210 1/3 innings for his career. Arraez is 0 for 3 against him, but Profar is five for 14 with a walk and a strikeout, which would be a .333 hit average.
Note that Machado is listed as day to day.
The NN produced hit list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.397, 0.796 — Luis Arraez batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.315, 0.712 — William Contreras batting against Casey Mize.
- 0.324, 0.708 — Donovan Solano batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.307, 0.704 — Luis Rengifo batting against Hunter Brown.
- 0.277, 0.699 — Steven Kwan batting against Roddery Munoz.
- 0.328, 0.697 — Jurickson Profar batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.319, 0.694 — Fernando Tatis Jr. batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.312, 0.691 — Alec Burleson batting against Ryan Feltner.
- 0.267, 0.687 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Luis Castillo.
- 0.313, 0.686 — Masyn Winn batting against Ryan Feltner.
Arraez’s .796 probability of a hit in the game is the highest of the season. Solano is 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!