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 projected hit averages against starting pitchers:
- 0.329 — Aaron Judge batting against Slade Cecconi.
- 0.329 — Jacob Wilson batting against Bailey Ober.
- 0.306 — Trea Turner batting against Chris Bassitt.
- 0.298 — Paul Goldschmidt batting against Slade Cecconi.
- 0.293 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Miles Mikolas.
- 0.292 — Freddie Freeman batting against David Peterson.
- 0.292 — Alec Bohm batting against Chris Bassitt.
- 0.286 — Ronald Acuna batting against Brandon Pfaadt.
- 0.285 — Maikel Garcia batting against Miles Mikolas.
- 0.284 — Jeremy Pena batting against Mitch Keller.
Note that the Royals and Cardinals play a doubleheader today to make up for the postponement Wednesday night. Mikolas is scheduled to start the matinee. It’s nice to see Ronald Acuna Jr. back and hitting well again, currently with a .341/.413/.610 slash line in 46 PA.
The NN produces this list of players with a high probability of collecting at least one hit:
- 0.329, 0.741 — Aaron Judge batting against Slade Cecconi.
- 0.329, 0.738 — Jacob Wilson batting against Bailey Ober.
- 0.292, 0.719 — Freddie Freeman batting against David Peterson.
- 0.293, 0.714 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Miles Mikolas.
- 0.306, 0.712 — Trea Turner batting against Chris Bassitt.
- 0.277, 0.701 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Matthew Liberatore.
- 0.286, 0.698 — Ronald Acuna batting against Brandon Pfaadt.
- 0.298, 0.698 — Paul Goldschmidt batting against Slade Cecconi.
- 0.292, 0.692 — Alec Bohm batting against Chris Bassitt.
- 0.284, 0.691 — Jeremy Pena batting against Mitch Keller.
There is nice agreement between the two systems with Judge and Wilson the unanimous double down pair.
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!
I love your daily BTS analysis, but have a minor recommendation. Please add the wording batting “at home” or “away” against with each of your top 10. I tend to lean toward picking batters on the road as it guarantees their team will have an at bat in the 9th inning vs. home team only batting in the 9th if they are losing. I’ve had several times where I’ve picked and home team batter that was due up in the 9th, but didn’t get to bat because they won the game.