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:
- 0.326 — Luis Arraez batting against Eduardo Rodriguez.
- 0.323 — Randal Grichuk batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.320 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.317 — Kevin Newman batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.313 — Amed Rosario batting against Kyle Hendricks.
- 0.312 — Jake McCarthy batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.311 — Ketel Marte batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.307 — Shohei Ohtani batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.301 — Gabriel Moreno batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.300 — Adrian Del Castillo batting against Randy Vasquez.
There’s a very NL West feel to the Log5 results today. There still are some things up in the air with the Diamondbacks and Dodgers, so you may still see the A teams on the field today. Del Castillo is a new name on the list. The Diamondbacks rookie is getting a bit more than a cup of coffee, hitting .312/.368/.525 in 87 PA.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting a hit:
- 0.326, 0.756 — Luis Arraez batting against Eduardo Rodriguez.
- 0.293, 0.738 — Jose Iglesias batting against Jared Koenig.
- 0.307, 0.719 — Shohei Ohtani batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.288, 0.713 — Yainer Diaz batting against Ben Lively.
- 0.296, 0.711 — Freddie Freeman batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.323, 0.711 — Randal Grichuk batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.313, 0.710 — Amed Rosario batting against Kyle Hendricks.
- 0.320, 0.710 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Randy Vasquez.
- 0.296, 0.709 — Jackson Merrill batting against Eduardo Rodriguez.
- 0.295, 0.708 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting against Xzavion Curry.
Both lists put Arraez at the top, with Grichuk 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!