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:
- 0.351 — Connor Wong batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.334 — Jarren Duran batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.331 — Rob Refsnyder batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.320 — Rafael Devers batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.312 — David Hamilton batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.307 — Steven Kwan batting against Alec Marsh.
- 0.307 — Masataka Yoshida batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.305 — Marcell Ozuna batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.305 — Luis Rengifo batting against Kenta Maeda.
- 0.303 — Wilyer Abreu batting against Randy Vasquez.
It looks like a day you can get a lot of mileage out of the Red Sox lineup. Vazquez allowed 68 hits in just 47 2/3 innings this season. He owns a low K rate of 5.9 per 9 IP, and a low walk rate of 2.27 per 9 IP. Opponents own a BABIP of .369 against him with lots of balls in play, plus he allowed ten home runs. Small sample size warnings are in order, but his numbers are regressed to the league averages to compensate for that.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.296, 0.740 — Luis Arraez batting against Nick Pivetta.
- 0.307, 0.730 — Steven Kwan batting against Alec Marsh.
- 0.351, 0.726 — Connor Wong batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.334, 0.716 — Jarren Duran batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.301, 0.712 — Harold Ramirez batting against Zach Eflin.
- 0.294, 0.711 — Jose Altuve batting against Jose Quintana.
- 0.331, 0.706 — Rob Refsnyder batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.305, 0.705 — Luis Rengifo batting against Kenta Maeda.
- 0.288, 0.703 — Freddie Freeman batting against Logan Webb.
- 0.279, 0.703 — Trea Turner batting against Kyle Tyler.
Arraez returns to the top of the list. He faced Pivetta six times before with a two for six, no walks and no Ks, so the matchup does result in balls in play.
Wong owns a thirteen game hit streak, but hasn’t played in a few days due to paternity leave. Bryan Reynolds tries to extend his 23 game hit streak. He projects to a .233 hit average against Charlie Morton with a .639 probability of extending the streak.
Wong stands as the consensus top pick, with Duran 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!