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:
- 0.353 — Luis Arraez batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.309 — Mookie Betts batting against Kevin Gausman.
- 0.307 — Jose Altuve batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.301 — Bryan De La Cruz batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.296 — Shohei Ohtani batting against Kevin Gausman.
- 0.291 — Tim Anderson batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.291 — Jeremy Pena batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.287 — Will Smith batting against Kevin Gausman.
- 0.286 — Freddie Freeman batting against Kevin Gausman.
- 0.285 — Yainer Diaz batting against Austin Gomber.
After a slow start Arraez pushed his BA back over .300, and today he gets to face an easy to hit pitcher in Patrick Corbin. Tim Anderson makes the list due to Corbin’s high hit averages allowed, but Anderson’s best has not returned as he slashes .222/.263/.244.
The NN produces these high probability hitters:
- 0.353, 0.766 — Luis Arraez batting against Patrick Corbin.
- 0.307, 0.720 — Jose Altuve batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.309, 0.714 — Mookie Betts batting against Kevin Gausman.
- 0.283, 0.711 — Michael Harris II batting against Ben Lively.
- 0.286, 0.700 — Freddie Freeman batting against Kevin Gausman.
- 0.296, 0.696 — Shohei Ohtani batting against Kevin Gausman.
- 0.291, 0.691 — Jeremy Pena batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.280, 0.689 — Steven Kwan batting against Bryce Elder.
- 0.285, 0.689 — Yainer Diaz batting against Austin Gomber.
- 0.260, 0.685 — Harold Ramirez batting against Erick Fedde.
It’s an Arraez day with Altuve or Betts as the 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!