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:
- 0.318 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.297 — Teoscar Hernandez batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.296 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.295 — Raimel Tapia batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.291 — Nico Hoerner batting against Anibal Sanchez.
- 0.290 — Bo Bichette batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.289 — Alejandro Kirk batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.283 — Ty France batting against Jameson Taillon.
- 0.281 — Santiago Espinal batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.275 — Manny Machado batting against Alex Wood.
There is a light schedule this Monday, and it looks like a good day to choose from the Toronto starting lineup. Lyles is a relatively low strikeout pitcher who gives up more hits than innings pitched. Gurriel is a high average hitter who puts the ball in play.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.318, 0.728 — Lourdes Gurriel batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.291, 0.707 — Nico Hoerner batting against Anibal Sanchez.
- 0.297, 0.704 — Teoscar Hernandez batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.296, 0.701 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.295, 0.697 — Raimel Tapia batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.290, 0.696 — Bo Bichette batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.283, 0.694 — Ty France batting against Jameson Taillon.
- 0.273, 0.689 — Luis Garcia batting against Keegan Thompson.
- 0.289, 0.685 — Alejandro Kirk batting against Jordan Lyles.
- 0.281, 0.680 — Santiago Espinal batting against Jordan Lyles.
There’s a lot of agreement here, although the NN like Hoerner as the double down pick. Hernandez is the consensus second choice, however. Note that the probabilities as pretty low today, so this might be a good time not to double down.
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!