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 NN yields these top projected hit averages against starting pitchers:
- 0.343 — Luis Rengifo batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.326 — Heliot Ramos batting against Ross Stripling.
- 0.322 — Jose Altuve batting against Jake Woodford.
- 0.318 — Tyler Fitzgerald batting against Ross Stripling.
- 0.317 — Logan O’Hoppe batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.316 — Kevin Pillar batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.313 — Yainer Diaz batting against Jake Woodford.
- 0.304 — Patrick Bailey batting against Ross Stripling.
- 0.303 — Brett Wisely batting against Ross Stripling.
- 0.300 — Jung Hoo Lee batting against Ross Stripling.
- 0.300 — Marco Luciano batting against Ross Stripling.
Rengifo had a great season for the Angles getting on base, overall batting .306/.352/.424. He did suffer an injury, and is only batting .229/.289/.257 in July.
It looks like a good day for the Giants as Stripling allows a .355 BABIP this season.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.322, 0.736 — Jose Altuve batting against Jake Woodford.
- 0.290, 0.733 — Luis Arraez batting against Clayton Kershaw.
- 0.343, 0.730 — Luis Rengifo batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.313, 0.725 — Yainer Diaz batting against Jake Woodford.
- 0.291, 0.721 — Jose Iglesias batting against Pablo Lopez.
- 0.297, 0.711 — Trea Turner batting against Nestor Cortes.
- 0.262, 0.707 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Andrew Thorpe.
- 0.299, 0.704 — Ryan O’Hearn batting against Paolo Espino.
- 0.326, 0.703 — Heliot Ramos batting against Ross Stripling.
- 0.271, 0.701 — Harold Ramirez batting against Zac Gallen.
Rengifo and Altuve tie for the consensus top pick. Arraez went 0 for 6 against Kershaw in their careers, Altuve striking out twice.
Check out Beat the Streak Advisor, a site that aggregates information to help you make a pick.
At Beat the Streak, JoyceG now owns a 47 game streak. Ten more to go!
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!