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:
- 0.307 — Tim Anderson batting against Drew Smyly.
- 0.293 — Manny Machado batting against Zach Plesac.
- 0.290 — Eric Hosmer batting against Zach Plesac.
- 0.286 — Michael Brantley batting against Chris Flexen.
- 0.283 — Jose Iglesias batting against Erick Fedde.
- 0.278 — Josh Bell batting against German Marquez.
- 0.277 — Yadiel Hernandez batting against German Marquez.
- 0.275 — Luis Robert batting against Drew Smyly.
- 0.275 — Ke’Bryan Hayes batting against Michael Pineda.
- 0.273 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Jameson Taillon.
- 0.273 — Randal Grichuk batting against Erick Fedde.
The Braves and the Mets play a doubleheader on Tuesday, so be careful picking from those games to make sure you get the right match-up.
Anderson tends to come to the top of these lists, but not Machado. The Padres third baseman is off to a great start with a .375 BA, and that is pushing him to the top of the Log5 list. Hosmer is have a similar surge, batting .382. In a year of down offense, something has the Padres hitting well.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.307, 0.730 — Tim Anderson batting against Drew Smyly.
- 0.286, 0.698 — Michael Brantley batting against Chris Flexen.
- 0.283, 0.692 — Jose Iglesias batting against Erick Fedde.
- 0.293, 0.691 — Manny Machado batting against Zach Plesac.
- 0.290, 0.688 — Eric Hosmer batting against Zach Plesac.
- 0.275, 0.685 — Luis Robert batting against Drew Smyly.
- 0.256, 0.682 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Noah Syndergaard.
- 0.268, 0.674 — Teoscar Hernandez batting against Jameson Taillon.
- 0.273, 0.672 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Jameson Taillon.
- 0.267, 0.671 — Luis Arraez batting against Bruce Zimmermann.
- 0.275, 0.670 — Ke’Bryan Hayes batting against Michael Pineda.
Anderson blows away the competition right now. He owns great long term numbers, and this season is batting .329 with a .346 OBP, meaning most of his OBP comes from hits. His .730 probability of getting a hit is the highest we’ve seen this year. Anderson is the first pick of both systems, with Brantley and Machado tied for 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!