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:
- 0.320 — Trea Turner batting against Jameson Taillon.
- 0.306 — Masyn Winn batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.305 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Zach Eflin.
- 0.305 — Alec Burleson batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.295 — Jose Miranda batting against Kenta Maeda.
- 0.294 — Steven Kwan batting against Jared Shuster.
- 0.292 — Brendan Donovan batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.290 — Alec Bohm batting against Jameson Taillon.
- 0.289 — Luis Rengifo batting against JP Sears.
- 0.289 — Jose Altuve batting against Chris Bassitt.
- 0.289 — Nolan Arenado batting against Martin Perez.
It looks like a good day for the Cardinals as Perez allows a .352 BABIP this season, and is not known for his ability to K batters.
Note that the Mets at the Nationals kicks off at 11 AM EDT, so get your picks in early.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.320, 0.731 — Trea Turner batting against Jameson Taillon.
- 0.275, 0.728 — Luis Arraez batting against Max Scherzer.
- 0.294, 0.717 — Steven Kwan batting against Jared Shuster.
- 0.305, 0.712 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Zach Eflin.
- 0.289, 0.709 — Jose Altuve batting against Chris Bassitt.
- 0.286, 0.707 — Harold Ramirez batting against Jose Quintana.
- 0.289, 0.699 — Luis Rengifo batting against JP Sears.
- 0.286, 0.696 — Christian Yelich batting against Cal Quantrill.
- 0.290, 0.696 — Alec Bohm batting against Jameson Taillon.
- 0.279, 0.696 — William Contreras batting against Cal Quantrill.
- 0.261, 0.696 — Jose Iglesias batting against Jake Irvin.
The NN eliminates the Cardinals hitters. Connor Wong, with a seventeen game hit streak, does not make the list today. The NN pegs his probability of a hit at .680.
The two systems agree on Turner as the top pick, with Witt winning 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!