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 versus starting pitchers:
- 0.324 — Christian Yelich batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.321 — Jose Iglesias batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.318 — William Contreras batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.310 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Andre Pallante.
- 0.307 — Harrison Bader batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.305 — Trea Turner batting against Gavin Stone.
- 0.302 — Mark Vientos batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.294 — Brice Turang batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.293 — J.D. Martinez batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.292 — Francisco Alvarez batting against Patrick Corbin.
Today features two double headers, so be careful picking from the Royals at the Cardinals and the Twins at the White Sox. Luckily, with both Perez and Corbin on the mound, the Brewers and Mets give you plenty of choices for players who might get a hit. Yelich has not hit Perez well, however, going just one for eight in his career.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.287, 0.736 — Luis Arraez batting against Bryce Miller.
- 0.305, 0.727 — Trea Turner batting against Gavin Stone.
- 0.321, 0.722 — Jose Iglesias batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.310, 0.721 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Andre Pallante.
- 0.291, 0.717 — Steven Kwan batting against Reese Olson.
- 0.283, 0.711 — Jose Altuve batting against Bryan Hoeing.
- 0.318, 0.710 — William Contreras batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.324, 0.709 — Christian Yelich batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.288, 0.709 — Jose Miranda batting against Erick Fedde.
- 0.278, 0.695 — Freddie Freeman batting against Cristopher Sanchez.
Miranda gets a chance to extend his twelve game hit streak by two today. As offense heats up in the majors, we are starting to see more batters with probabilities over .700. Iglesias comes in as the consensus top pick with Witt as the double down choice. Pallente is scheduled to pitch the early game.
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!