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:
- 0.322 — Julio Rodriguez batting against Gavin Stone.
- 0.310 — Thairo Estrada batting against Chris Flexen.
- 0.305 — Josh Naylor batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.303 — William Contreras batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.301 — Teoscar Hernandez batting against Gavin Stone.
- 0.301 — Nico Hoerner batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.301 — Wilmer Flores batting against Chris Flexen.
- 0.299 — Cody Bellinger batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.297 — Harold Ramirez batting against Dean Kremer.
- 0.297 — Luis Arraez batting against Charlie Morton.
Rodriguez does have a relatively low OBP compared to his batting average, .287/.345 for his career, so most of his OBP comes from hits. Combine that with Stone allowing 42 hits in 23 1/3 innings, and Rodriguez is very likely to deliver today.
Here are the NN picks:
- 0.297, 0.749 — Luis Arraez batting against Charlie Morton.
- 0.297, 0.720 — Harold Ramirez batting against Dean Kremer.
- 0.286, 0.718 — Freddie Freeman batting against Logan Gilbert.
- 0.322, 0.716 — Julio Rodriguez batting against Gavin Stone.
- 0.305, 0.712 — Josh Naylor batting against Martin Perez.
- 0.291, 0.707 — Yandy Diaz batting against Dean Kremer.
- 0.301, 0.706 — Nico Hoerner batting against Ryne Nelson.
- 0.276, 0.706 — Michael Harris II batting against Jesus Luzardo.
- 0.281, 0.706 — Ronald Acuna batting against Jesus Luzardo.
- 0.263, 0.705 — Bo Bichette batting against Nick Pivetta.
It’s a somewhat different list, with Arraez and Ramirez at the top instead of the bottom. Rodriguez and Naylor come in as the consensus double down choices. Arraez is three for eight against Morton with one walk and no strikeouts.
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!