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:
- 0.329 — Jose Iglesias batting against Trevor Rogers.
- 0.298 — Luis Arraez batting against Daniel Matthews.
- 0.286 — Tyler Fitzgerald batting against Jonathan Cannon.
- 0.285 — Starling Marte batting against Trevor Rogers.
- 0.284 — Masataka Yoshida batting against Yusei Kikuchi.
- 0.283 — Xavier Edwards batting against Brandon Pfaadt.
- 0.280 — Jarren Duran batting against Yusei Kikuchi.
- 0.279 — Julio Rodriguez batting against Gavin Stone.
- 0.277 — Jake McCarthy batting against Adam Oller.
- 0.277 — Rafael Devers batting against Yusei Kikuchi.
Only ten games tonight. Iglesias is having a great August with three games in a row of two hits.
The NN produced this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.329, 0.749 — Jose Iglesias batting against Trevor Rogers.
- 0.298, 0.739 — Luis Arraez batting against Daniel Matthews.
- 0.264, 0.711 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Carson Fulmer.
- 0.269, 0.699 — Yainer Diaz batting against Tanner Houck.
- 0.267, 0.697 — Jose Altuve batting against Tanner Houck.
- 0.284, 0.696 — Masataka Yoshida batting against Yusei Kikuchi.
- 0.283, 0.692 — Xavier Edwards batting against Brandon Pfaadt.
- 0.280, 0.689 — Jarren Duran batting against Yusei Kikuchi.
- 0.277, 0.688 — Jake McCarthy batting against Adam Oller.
- 0.272, 0.688 — Donovan Solano batting against Daniel Matthews.
The two systems are in agreement at the top with Iglesias and Arraez as the double down picks.
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!