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.
Here are the Log5 picks:
- 0.268 — Nick Castellanos batting against Cole Irvin.
- 0.267 — Bo Bichette batting against Dane Dunning.
- 0.267 — Paul Goldschmidt batting against Mitch Keller.
- 0.265 — Trea Turner batting against German Marquez.
- 0.263 — Jean Segura batting against Cole Irvin.
- 0.262 — Luis Robert batting against Matt Manning.
- 0.262 — Tyler O’Neill batting against Mitch Keller.
- 0.261 — A.J. Pollock batting against Matt Manning.
- 0.261 — Teoscar Hernandez batting against Dane Dunning.
- 0.260 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting against Dane Dunning.
Note that these hit averages are going to be low early on. There is nearly full regression to the position player mean, which is low right now at .202. The major league batting average stands at .230 with a .316 OBP as the three-true outcomes continue to reign supreme.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.265, 0.695 — Trea Turner batting against German Marquez.
- 0.267, 0.680 — Bo Bichette batting against Dane Dunning.
- 0.262, 0.673 — Luis Robert batting against Matt Manning.
- 0.268, 0.671 — Nick Castellanos batting against Cole Irvin.
- 0.261, 0.669 — Teoscar Hernandez batting against Dane Dunning.
- 0.248, 0.669 — Michael Brantley batting against Noah Syndergaard.
- 0.261, 0.668 — A.J. Pollock batting against Matt Manning.
- 0.260, 0.665 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting against Dane Dunning.
- 0.267, 0.663 — Paul Goldschmidt batting against Mitch Keller.
- 0.263, 0.660 — Jean Segura batting against Cole Irvin.
Turner often turns up near the top of the NN list. Over the last three seasons he posted a high BA and OBP, with his OBP mostly made up from his hits. He bats high in the order which gives him more opportunities in a game to collect a hit as well.
Bo Bichette is the consensus first pick, however, with Nick Castellanos and Turner tied for the double down 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!