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 average versus starting pitchers:
- 0.319 — Luis Arraez batting against Cal Quantrill.
- 0.309 — Jose Miranda batting against Chris Flexen.
- 0.305 — Jose Iglesias batting against Griffin Canning.
- 0.296 — Isiah Kiner-Falefa batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.294 — Bryan Reynolds batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.292 — Cody Bellinger batting against Miles Mikolas.
- 0.286 — Donovan Solano batting against Cal Quantrill.
- 0.284 — Seiya Suzuki batting against Miles Mikolas.
- 0.283 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Bryan Sammons.
- 0.277 — Jackson Merrill batting against Cal Quantrill.
- 0.277 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Cal Quantrill.
- 0.277 — Nico Hoerner batting against Miles Mikolas.
It looks like a good day for the Pirates and the Padres. Quantrill faced Arraez more than any other batter, and held the contact guru to a 6 for 26 with four strikeouts and one walk. Arraez has two extra-base hits against Quantrill, both triples.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.319, 0.751 — Luis Arraez batting against Cal Quantrill.
- 0.305, 0.729 — Jose Iglesias batting against Griffin Canning.
- 0.309, 0.717 — Jose Miranda batting against Chris Flexen.
- 0.283, 0.715 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Bryan Sammons.
- 0.276, 0.703 — Jose Altuve batting against Hunter Bigge.
- 0.270, 0.699 — Amed Rosario batting against Osvaldo Bido.
- 0.273, 0.699 — Yainer Diaz batting against Hunter Bigge.
- 0.264, 0.695 — Harold Ramirez batting against Tobias Myers.
- 0.286, 0.694 — Donovan Solano batting against Cal Quantrill.
- 0.292, 0.687 — Cody Bellinger batting against Miles Mikolas.
- 0.296, 0.687 — Isiah Kiner-Falefa batting against Ryne Nelson.
The top of the list is similar, but the middle differs somewhat. The two systems agree on Arraez as the top pick, with your choice of Iglesias or Miranda as the double down.
There are 57 days left in the regular season, so this is the last day you can start a streak picking one player each day.
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!