For the past few years Baseball Musings tried to help with playing Beat the Streak. MLB is not offering the game during the short 2020 season, but people indicated they can still use the data. 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.
Here are the Log5 Method picks:
- 0.346 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Tanner Roark.
- 0.331 — Tim Anderson batting against Jake Odorizzi.
- 0.313 — Charlie Blackmon batting against Michael Fiers.
- 0.306 — Michael Brantley batting against Kyle Gibson.
- 0.303 — Jose Iglesias batting against Cole Hamels.
- 0.300 — Jose Abreu batting against Jake Odorizzi.
- 0.299 — Jeff McNeil batting against Zack Wheeler.
- 0.296 — Donovan Solano batting against Ljay Newsome.
- 0.296 — Giovanny Urshela batting against Tanner Roark.
- 0.295 — Francisco Lindor batting against Jon Lester.
LeMahieu is actually two for 11 against Roark in his career, striking out twice.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.346, 0.764 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Tanner Roark.
- 0.331, 0.763 — Tim Anderson batting against Jake Odorizzi.
- 0.313, 0.735 — Charlie Blackmon batting against Michael Fiers.
- 0.303, 0.734 — Jose Iglesias batting against Cole Hamels.
- 0.299, 0.728 — Jeff McNeil batting against Zack Wheeler.
- 0.296, 0.725 — Donovan Solano batting against Ljay Newsome.
- 0.286, 0.719 — Hanser Alberto batting against Cole Hamels.
- 0.306, 0.718 — Michael Brantley batting against Kyle Gibson.
- 0.300, 0.715 — Jose Abreu batting against Jake Odorizzi.
- 0.282, 0.711 — Trea Turner batting against Peter Fairbanks.
LeMahieu and Anderson are very close here. This might be a day where one would think two is the better pick.
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!