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 project hit averages against starting pitchers:
- 0.340 — Luis Arraez batting against Miles Mikolas.
- 0.320 — Aaron Judge batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.314 — Donovan Solano batting against Miles Mikolas.
- 0.311 — Jackson Merrill batting against Miles Mikolas.
- 0.305 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting against Cooper Criswell.
- 0.302 — Amed Rosario batting against Mitch Spence.
- 0.302 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Gavin Williams.
- 0.301 — Mookie Betts batting against Cole Irvin.
- 0.298 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Miles Mikolas.
- 0.298 — Freddie Freeman batting against Cole Irvin.
Judge comes out second on this list, but he walks so much he is a tough pick. Also, Corbin looks like he’s improving since the Yankees don’t dominate the top picks!
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.340, 0.762 — Luis Arraez batting against Miles Mikolas.
- 0.302, 0.725 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Gavin Williams.
- 0.288, 0.721 — Jose Iglesias batting against Eduardo Rodriguez.
- 0.314, 0.717 — Donovan Solano batting against Miles Mikolas.
- 0.311, 0.714 — Jackson Merrill batting against Miles Mikolas.
- 0.302, 0.714 — Amed Rosario batting against Mitch Spence.
- 0.320, 0.711 — Aaron Judge batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.305, 0.711 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting against Cooper Criswell.
- 0.285, 0.710 — Yainer Diaz batting against Aaron Nola.
- 0.298, 0.702 — Freddie Freeman batting against Cole Irvin.
Both systems agree on Arraez as the top pick. Judge, Solano, and Witt all tie for the consensus double down choice.
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!