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:
- 0.336 — Jose Iglesias batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.315 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Kolby Allard.
- 0.296 — Luis Arraez batting against Jose Quintana.
- 0.295 — Starling Marte batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.293 — Aaron Judge batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.291 — Freddy Fermin batting against Kolby Allard.
- 0.280 — Yandy Diaz batting against Gavin Stone.
- 0.280 — Mark Vientos batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.277 — Francisco Lindor batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.273 — Donovan Solano batting against Jose Quintana.
Log5 picked a number of batters from the Mets at the Padres this weekend, and it seems to like the Mets versus Perez today. Iglesias is 5 for21 against Perez in his career, but with just one HBP and one K. So he puts the ball in play. Lindor, on the other hand, is seven for 17 with five walks and one K. That’s a possible Mets double down.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.336, 0.750 — Jose Iglesias batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.315, 0.738 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Kolby Allard.
- 0.296, 0.738 — Luis Arraez batting against Jose Quintana.
- 0.291, 0.707 — Freddy Fermin batting against Kolby Allard.
- 0.265, 0.704 — Yainer Diaz batting against Dean Kremer.
- 0.269, 0.698 — Amed Rosario batting against Luis Ortiz.
- 0.258, 0.693 — Jose Altuve batting against Dean Kremer.
- 0.273, 0.693 — Donovan Solano batting against Jose Quintana.
- 0.280, 0.692 — Yandy Diaz batting against Gavin Stone.
- 0.264, 0.691 — Trea Turner batting against Seth Lugo.
Yainer Diaz is the only member of the top ten working on any kind of a hit streak. The two systems agree on the top three, making Iglesias and Witt the double down pick for today.
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!