For the past two 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. If you find this useful, please support Baseball Musings with a donation.

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.

First, the Log5 Method picks:

• 0.310 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Jakob Junis.
• 0.308 — Javier Baez batting against Anthony DeSclafani.
• 0.306 — David Peralta batting against Drew Pomeranz.
• 0.299 — Jeff McNeil batting against Gregory Soto.
• 0.299 — Cody Bellinger batting against Montana DuRapau.
• 0.296 — Jorge Polanco batting against Reynaldo Lopez.
• 0.296 — Gleyber Torres batting against Jakob Junis.
• 0.295 — Jose Iglesias batting against Kyle Hendricks.
• 0.295 — Freddie Freeman batting against Miles Mikolas.
• 0.292 — Giovanny Urshela batting against Jakob Junis.

Three Yankees make the list, including the surprising Giovanny Urshela. This may be the high point of Urshela’s career. 🙂 Junis allows a high number of hits, but he also walks a high number of batters.

Here are the neural network picks:

• 0.308, 0.731 — Javier Baez batting against Anthony DeSclafani.
• 0.310, 0.724 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Jakob Junis.
• 0.306, 0.722 — David Peralta batting against Drew Pomeranz.
• 0.299, 0.717 — Jeff McNeil batting against Gregory Soto.
• 0.296, 0.715 — Jorge Polanco batting against Reynaldo Lopez.
• 0.299, 0.715 — Cody Bellinger batting against Montana DuRapau.
• 0.269, 0.713 — Jean Segura batting against Chase Anderson.
• 0.295, 0.712 — Freddie Freeman batting against Miles Mikolas.
• 0.284, 0.712 — J.D. Martinez batting against Wade Miley.
• 0.282, 0.706 — Jose Martinez batting against Mike Foltynewicz.

Baez and LeMahieu tie for the consensus first pick. The two systems are in pretty good agreement today, basically agreeing on who should be in the top seven.

I do not guarantee results. Your best pick is going to have about a 25% chance of not getting a hit. Good luck!