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:
- 0.312 — Marcell Ozuna batting against Casey Mize.
- 0.304 — Shohei Ohtani batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.299 — Freddie Freeman batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.298 — Ezequiel Tovar batting against Walker Buehler.
- 0.297 — Luis Arraez batting against Aaron Nola.
- 0.295 — Jose Altuve batting against Jonathan Cannon.
- 0.290 — Amed Rosario batting against Pablo Lopez.
- 0.289 — Mauricio Dubon batting against Jonathan Cannon.
- 0.285 — Luis Garcia batting against Slade Cecconi.
- 0.283 — Ozzie Albies batting against Casey Mize.
Freeman, with a seven-game hit streak, is 6 for 11 career against Gomber with no strikeouts.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.297, 0.747 — Luis Arraez batting against Aaron Nola.
- 0.278, 0.719 — Steven Kwan batting against Bryce Miller.
- 0.299, 0.716 — Freddie Freeman batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.304, 0.711 — Shohei Ohtani batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.295, 0.707 — Jose Altuve batting against Jonathan Cannon.
- 0.312, 0.705 — Marcell Ozuna batting against Casey Mize.
- 0.290, 0.700 — Amed Rosario batting against Pablo Lopez.
- 0.279, 0.699 — Harold Ramirez batting against Pablo Lopez.
- 0.298, 0.699 — Ezequiel Tovar batting against Walker Buehler.
- 0.273, 0.695 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Hogan Harris.
Jonathan Cannon ranks as one of the best names for a pitcher ever. So far, however, his high K rate failed to prevent hits.
The two systems disagree a bit today, leading to a three-way tie for the consensus top pick of Arraez, Freeman, and Ohtani. Given the Dodgers game takes place in Colorado, Freeman and Ohtani seem like a good 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!