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:
- 0.325 — Marcell Ozuna batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.318 — Amed Rosario batting against Carlos Carrasco.
- 0.315 — Luis Arraez batting against Spencer Schwellenbach.
- 0.310 — Alec Burleson batting against Kyle Hendricks.
- 0.309 — Trea Turner batting against Hogan Harris.
- 0.309 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.308 — Austin Riley batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.308 — Jose Miranda batting against Kyle Harrison.
- 0.305 — Ozzie Albies batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.305 — Jarred Kelenic batting against Randy Vasquez.
I’ve never seen Ozuna at the top before, but given that Vasquez combines a low K rate with a high home run rate and a .356 BABIP, I’m not surprised a high average power hitter comes in first.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.315, 0.748 — Luis Arraez batting against Spencer Schwellenbach.
- 0.309, 0.729 — Trea Turner batting against Hogan Harris.
- 0.318, 0.722 — Amed Rosario batting against Carlos Carrasco.
- 0.308, 0.716 — Jose Miranda batting against Kyle Harrison.
- 0.297, 0.714 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Cooper Criswell.
- 0.277, 0.712 — Steven Kwan batting against Taj Bradley.
- 0.289, 0.710 — Jose Altuve batting against Andrew Heaney.
- 0.325, 0.702 — Marcell Ozuna batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.278, 0.701 — Jose Iglesias batting against Tanner Gordon.
- 0.295, 0.701 — Yandy Diaz batting against Carlos Carrasco.
Arraez is the consensus top pick, with Rosario the double down choice. The NN weights the batter’s ability to get a hit more than the pitcher’s weakness in allowing hits.
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!