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:
- 0.338 — Steven Kwan batting against Yusei Kikuchi.
- 0.323 — Luis Garcia batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.311 — CJ Abrams batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.309 — Trea Turner batting against Slade Cecconi.
- 0.304 — Ildemaro Vargas batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.302 — Jacob Young batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.296 — Joey Meneses batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.291 — Alec Bohm batting against Slade Cecconi.
- 0.290 — Lane Thomas batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.286 — Luis Arraez batting against Tobias Myers.
The Nationals get to face Freeland and his .439 BABIP at Coors Field. Everyone on Washington wants into the lineup today.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.338, 0.747 — Steven Kwan batting against Yusei Kikuchi.
- 0.286, 0.737 — Luis Arraez batting against Tobias Myers.
- 0.309, 0.718 — Trea Turner batting against Slade Cecconi.
- 0.323, 0.714 — Luis Garcia batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.291, 0.696 — Alec Bohm batting against Slade Cecconi.
- 0.311, 0.694 — CJ Abrams batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.271, 0.692 — Amed Rosario batting against Paul Skenes.
- 0.304, 0.690 — Ildemaro Vargas batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.260, 0.689 — Harold Ramirez batting against Paul Skenes.
- 0.296, 0.687 — Joey Meneses batting against Kyle Freeland.
The two systems agree on Kwan at the top, although he is 0 for 6 against Kikuchi. The matchup produced no strikeouts, however. Luis Garcia of the Nationals is the consensus double down pick.
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!