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 projected hit averages against starting pitchers:
- 0.332 — Luis Rengifo batting against Jordan Montgomery.
- 0.311 — Amed Rosario batting against Jameson Taillon.
- 0.310 — Steven Kwan batting against Brent Suter.
- 0.308 — Kevin Pillar batting against Jordan Montgomery.
- 0.307 — Ezequiel Tovar batting against Louie Varland.
- 0.306 — Elias Diaz batting against Louie Varland.
- 0.302 — Harold Ramirez batting against Jameson Taillon.
- 0.298 — Willie Calhoun batting against Jordan Montgomery.
- 0.297 — Luis Arraez batting against JP Sears.
- 0.296 — Logan O’Hoppe batting against Jordan Montgomery.
- 0.296 — William Contreras batting against Yusei Kikuchi.
Rengifo lowered both his walk and strikeout rates this season and greatly raised his BABIP to become a high average hitter. Looking at STATCAST, he leveled his swing, and that led to a higher percentage of his balls in play going for line drives. He reinvented his swing to great success, and that appears to be an under-reported story.
Diaz is listed as day to day.
The NN produces these batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.297, 0.747 — Luis Arraez batting against JP Sears.
- 0.310, 0.717 — Steven Kwan batting against Brent Suter.
- 0.332, 0.716 — Luis Rengifo batting against Jordan Montgomery.
- 0.302, 0.712 — Harold Ramirez batting against Jameson Taillon.
- 0.311, 0.710 — Amed Rosario batting against Jameson Taillon.
- 0.307, 0.701 — Ezequiel Tovar batting against Louie Varland.
- 0.296, 0.700 — William Contreras batting against Yusei Kikuchi.
- 0.306, 0.699 — Elias Diaz batting against Louie Varland.
- 0.258, 0.686 — Jose Altuve batting against Jordan Hicks.
- 0.259, 0.684 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Marcus Stroman.
Arraez went two days in a row without a hit! He still remains the odds on favorite to pick up one today. Meanwhile, his teammate Fernando Tatis Jr. owns a sixteen game hit streak, the longest currently in the majors. Witt is third at eleven games.
Rengifo stands at the consensus top pick, with Kwan 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!