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:
- 0.336 — Ryan O’Hearn batting against Ty Blach.
- 0.334 — Eloy Jimenez batting against Ty Blach.
- 0.330 — Gunnar Henderson batting against Ty Blach.
- 0.320 — Adley Rutschman batting against Ty Blach.
- 0.317 — Ramon Urias batting against Ty Blach.
- 0.309 — Livan Soto batting against Ty Blach.
- 0.303 — Anthony Santander batting against Ty Blach.
- 0.298 — Aaron Judge batting against Miles Mikolas.
- 0.297 — Colton Cowser batting against Ty Blach.
- 0.288 — Kerry Carpenter batting against Cooper Criswell.
It looks like a blow out for the Orioles today, as eight of their position players make the list against Blach in Colorado. Note that the Log5 Method does not make an adjustment for the park; the NN does that. Blach owns a low K rate of 4.81 per 9 IP, walks few batters, gives up lots of home runs, and opponents own a .348 BABIP against him.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.336, 0.720 — Ryan O’Hearn batting against Ty Blach.
- 0.334, 0.717 — Eloy Jimenez batting against Ty Blach.
- 0.254, 0.715 — Luis Arraez batting against Ryan Pepiot.
- 0.285, 0.710 — Yainer Diaz batting against Alec Marsh.
- 0.330, 0.708 — Gunnar Henderson batting against Ty Blach.
- 0.265, 0.704 — Jose Iglesias batting against Garrett Crochet.
- 0.279, 0.701 — Jose Altuve batting against Alec Marsh.
- 0.320, 0.697 — Adley Rutschman batting against Ty Blach.
- 0.281, 0.696 — Luis Garcia Jr. batting against Jordan Wicks.
- 0.275, 0.696 — Harold Ramirez batting against Jordan Wicks.
Only four Orioles make this list, but the two systems agree on the top as O’Hearn and Jimenez rank as the double down choice on both.
Note that today is the last year you can start a streak and still have a chance at reaching 57 games.
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!
Last day to start…The opportunity is now or wait until March 27, 2025 to start again. I hope September 29 2024, the opportunity is still possible for some fan. I enjoy these daily posts and hope to read them until 9/29/2024 with something to play for myself.
I’m still alive so post tomorrow
I’m still alive so post tomorrow