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:
- 0.310 — Yainer Diaz batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.308 — Jose Altuve batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.307 — Jackson Chourio batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.305 — William Contreras batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.303 — Jarren Duran batting against Chris Flexen.
- 0.303 — Bryan Reynolds batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.302 — Luis Arraez batting against Spencer Bivens.
- 0.302 — Isiah Kiner-Falefa batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.299 — Yordan Alvarez batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.298 — Oneil Cruz batting against Patrick Corbin.
Yainer Diaz continues to rise in the Beat the Streak rankings, now passing long time top ten teammate Jose Altuve. Diaz even managed three triples this season.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.302, 0.745 — Luis Arraez batting against Spencer Bivens.
- 0.310, 0.723 — Yainer Diaz batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.297, 0.722 — Jose Iglesias batting against Julian Aguiar.
- 0.308, 0.721 — Jose Altuve batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.279, 0.713 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Simeon Woods Richardson.
- 0.303, 0.711 — Jarren Duran batting against Chris Flexen.
- 0.299, 0.705 — Yordan Alvarez batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.296, 0.703 — Masataka Yoshida batting against Chris Flexen.
- 0.307, 0.696 — Jackson Chourio batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.305, 0.695 — William Contreras batting against Kyle Freeland.
Arraez owns a seven game hit streak during which he’s hitting .414. Diaz comes out as the consensus top pick, with Altuve the consensus double down choice. Mix and match as you like. The Astros are playing the late game today, so Diaz might not get the day off.
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!