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:
- 0.329 — Tim Anderson batting against Aaron Civale.
- 0.296 — Luis Robert batting against Aaron Civale.
- 0.283 — Jose Iglesias batting against Alex Cobb.
- 0.280 — Manny Machado batting against Mark Leiter.
- 0.279 — Jeff McNeil batting against Aaron Sanchez.
- 0.274 — Aaron Judge batting against Jose Berrios.
- 0.272 — Byron Buxton batting against Jose Urquidy.
- 0.272 — Ty France batting against Bailey Falter.
- 0.272 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting against Jameson Taillon.
- 0.271 — Starling Marte batting against Aaron Sanchez.
Anderson comes out head and shoulders above everyone else. Log5 looks like a good predictor here, as Anderson is 7 for 17 against Civale with no walks and four strikeouts.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.329, 0.745 — Tim Anderson batting against Aaron Civale.
- 0.296, 0.702 — Luis Robert batting against Aaron Civale.
- 0.283, 0.697 — Jose Iglesias batting against Alex Cobb.
- 0.280, 0.690 — Manny Machado batting against Mark Leiter.
- 0.261, 0.686 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Ian Anderson.
- 0.250, 0.680 — Trea Turner batting against Beau Sulser.
- 0.272, 0.676 — Ty France batting against Bailey Falter.
- 0.269, 0.675 — Eric Hosmer batting against Mark Leiter.
- 0.271, 0.674 — Starling Marte batting against Aaron Sanchez.
- 0.279, 0.672 — Jeff McNeil batting against Aaron Sanchez.
Don’t bother doubling down today. Anderson is so far ahead of everyone else in this match-up that surviving until tomorrow wins out.
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!