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:
- 0.327 — Luis Gonzalez batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.326 — Wilmer Flores batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.312 — Brandon Belt batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.310 — Paul Goldschmidt batting against Trevor Williams.
- 0.309 — Thairo Estrada batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.309 — Evan Longoria batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.307 — Brandon Crawford batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.305 — LaMonte Wade batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.303 — Mike Yastrzemski batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.302 — Joc Pederson batting against Antonio Senzatela.
The opposition owns a .402/.433/.538 slash line against Senzatela this season. He walked seven and struck out eight in 27 2/3 innings, so the opposition puts the ball in play. The Giants game against the Rockies takes place at Coors Field. Log5 really wants you to select a Giant against Senzatela. Belt hits him well.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.296, 0.735 — Tim Anderson batting against Brad Keller.
- 0.310, 0.706 — Paul Goldschmidt batting against Trevor Williams.
- 0.282, 0.703 — Xander Bogaerts batting against Jake Odorizzi.
- 0.292, 0.703 — Jose Iglesias batting against Alex Wood.
- 0.274, 0.703 — Luis Robert batting against Brad Keller.
- 0.326, 0.694 — Wilmer Flores batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.277, 0.692 — Rafael Devers batting against Jake Odorizzi.
- 0.260, 0.690 — Trea Turner batting against Madison Bumgarner.
- 0.300, 0.686 — Nolan Arenado batting against Trevor Williams.
- 0.327, 0.684 — Luis Gonzalez batting against Antonio Senzatela.
- 0.283, 0.684 — Yonathan Daza batting against Alex Wood.
The NN is much less sensitive to short-term anomalies. That makes Goldschmidt the consensus first pick, and Flores the consensus double down. Robert is working on a thirteen game hit streak.
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!