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:
- 0.308 — Yainer Diaz batting against Mitch Spence.
- 0.306 — Jose Altuve batting against Mitch Spence.
- 0.299 — Luis Garcia Jr. batting against Darren McCaughan.
- 0.297 — Harold Ramirez batting against Darren McCaughan.
- 0.297 — Yordan Alvarez batting against Mitch Spence.
- 0.289 — Xavier Edwards batting against Mitchell Parker.
- 0.288 — Kerry Carpenter batting against Ryan Feltner.
- 0.283 — Juan Yepez batting against Darren McCaughan.
- 0.280 — Jose Tena batting against Darren McCaughan.
- 0.279 — Aaron Judge batting against Cooper Criswell.
On a day with just eight games, some of the high average sluggers make the top ten. Note that Jose Altuve left the game on Wednesday with an injury, so check his status if you decide to pick him.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.308, 0.723 — Yainer Diaz batting against Mitch Spence.
- 0.306, 0.721 — Jose Altuve batting against Mitch Spence.
- 0.297, 0.709 — Harold Ramirez batting against Darren McCaughan.
- 0.297, 0.704 — Yordan Alvarez batting against Mitch Spence.
- 0.299, 0.702 — Luis Garcia Jr. batting against Darren McCaughan.
- 0.289, 0.694 — Xavier Edwards batting against Mitchell Parker.
- 0.288, 0.690 — Kerry Carpenter batting against Ryan Feltner.
- 0.257, 0.680 — Amed Rosario batting against Sonny Gray.
- 0.269, 0.680 — Jarren Duran batting against Nestor Cortes.
- 0.267, 0.679 — Masataka Yoshida batting against Nestor Cortes.
There is good agreement between the two lists, coming up with the same top seven in a slightly different order. Diaz and Altuve are the unanimous double down picks. If Altuve can’t play, Ramirez would be the double down pick. It’s also possible that Diaz doesn’t play, since it’s a day game after a night game and that is usually a day of rest for first string catchers.