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 picks:
- 0.309 — Andrew Benintendi batting against Steven Matz.
- 0.278 — Nolan Arenado batting against Zack Greinke.
- 0.276 — Ty France batting against Jake Odorizzi.
- 0.275 — J.P. Crawford batting against Jake Odorizzi.
- 0.273 — Nicky Lopez batting against Steven Matz.
- 0.272 — Salvador Perez batting against Steven Matz.
- 0.269 — Austin Hays batting against Chris Paddack.
- 0.268 — Paul Goldschmidt batting against Zack Greinke.
- 0.267 — Ryan Mountcastle batting against Chris Paddack.
- 0.267 — Michael Brantley batting against Marco Gonzales.
There is a light schedule today, with just eight games on tap. Benintendi ranks third in the AL in batting average at .366. He seems to have adjusted to the lack of power in the league, by simply putting the ball in play for singles. Only four of his twenty six hits fell for extra bases.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.309, 0.700 — Andrew Benintendi batting against Steven Matz.
- 0.255, 0.696 — Tim Anderson batting against Patrick Sandoval.
- 0.267, 0.680 — Michael Brantley batting against Marco Gonzales.
- 0.276, 0.678 — Ty France batting against Jake Odorizzi.
- 0.275, 0.671 — J.P. Crawford batting against Jake Odorizzi.
- 0.278, 0.669 — Nolan Arenado batting against Zack Greinke.
- 0.268, 0.666 — Paul Goldschmidt batting against Zack Greinke.
- 0.260, 0.663 — Isiah Kiner-Falefa batting against Ross Stripling.
- 0.262, 0.660 — Jeff McNeil batting against Max Fried.
- 0.248, 0.660 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Jordan Montgomery.
The two systems agree on Benintendi, but differ on the double down choice. France turns out to be the consensus second choice, but with all the probabilities low, it might not be a good day to double down. The Royals play an early afternoon game, so get your picks in this morning.
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!