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:
- 0.305 — Jose Altuve batting against Logan Allen.
- 0.301 — Luis Arraez batting against Peter Lambert.
- 0.301 — Steven Kwan batting against Spencer Arrighetti.
- 0.287 — Jeremy Pena batting against Logan Allen.
- 0.276 — Yainer Diaz batting against Logan Allen.
- 0.275 — Connor Wong batting against Kyle Harrison.
- 0.273 — Nico Hoerner batting against Adrian Houser.
- 0.271 — Mauricio Dubon batting against Logan Allen.
- 0.264 — Kyle Tucker batting against Logan Allen.
- 0.264 — Jarren Duran batting against Kyle Harrison.
The calculation here is hit average, Hits/PA, so .300 here is much more impressive than a .300 BA. Altuve and Kwan vie for best lead-off hitters in the AL this season. Picking a lead-off hitter means more plate appearances in general, which raises the likelihood of a hit.
Note that five of the six games take place this afternoon, so get your picks in early.
The NN produces these batters with a high probability of a hit:
- 0.301, 0.736 — Luis Arraez batting against Peter Lambert.
- 0.305, 0.719 — Jose Altuve batting against Logan Allen.
- 0.301, 0.704 — Steven Kwan batting against Spencer Arrighetti.
- 0.287, 0.685 — Jeremy Pena batting against Logan Allen.
- 0.276, 0.677 — Yainer Diaz batting against Logan Allen.
- 0.271, 0.672 — Mauricio Dubon batting against Logan Allen.
- 0.273, 0.670 — Nico Hoerner batting against Adrian Houser.
- 0.275, 0.664 — Connor Wong batting against Kyle Harrison.
- 0.262, 0.664 — Josh Naylor batting against Spencer Arrighetti.
- 0.264, 0.661 — Jarren Duran batting against Kyle Harrison.
Arraez and Altuve tie for the consensus top picks. Kwan is up there as well, and hit in seven straight games.
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!