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:
- 0.343 — Steven Kwan batting against Cole Irvin.
- 0.329 — Luis Arraez batting against MacKenzie Gore.
- 0.308 — Jose Altuve batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.302 — Mauricio Dubon batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.300 — Julio Rodriguez batting against Zack Littell.
- 0.300 — Heliot Ramos batting against Kyle Hendricks.
- 0.300 — Patrick Bailey batting against Kyle Hendricks.
- 0.297 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Yonny Chirinos.
- 0.296 — Ryan O’Hearn batting against Logan Allen.
- 0.295 — Adley Rutschman batting against Logan Allen.
Note that Witt’s .312 BA officially leads the AL, as Kwan still needs more plate appearances to qualify. Arraez is now fifth in the NL at .311.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.329, 0.757 — Luis Arraez batting against MacKenzie Gore.
- 0.343, 0.750 — Steven Kwan batting against Cole Irvin.
- 0.308, 0.722 — Jose Altuve batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.302, 0.710 — Mauricio Dubon batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.297, 0.708 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Yonny Chirinos.
- 0.290, 0.707 — Freddie Freeman batting against Chris Flexen.
- 0.296, 0.702 — Ryan O’Hearn batting against Logan Allen.
- 0.294, 0.701 — Shohei Ohtani batting against Chris Flexen.
- 0.290, 0.696 — Jarren Duran batting against Kevin Gausman.
- 0.291, 0.695 — Luis Rengifo batting against Mitch Spence.
Duran works on a 14-game hit streak, while Bryan Reynolds owns the longest current streak at 21 games. Arraez and Kwan make a high probability double down pair.
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!