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 versus starting pitchers:
- 0.343, 0.756 — Jacob Wilson batting vs. Colton Gordon.
- 0.295, 0.680 — Hunter Goodman batting at Trevor Williams.
- 0.289, 0.708 — Aaron Judge batting vs. Tyler Anderson.
- 0.287, 0.685 — Isiah Kiner-Falefa batting at Keider Montero.
- 0.286, 0.701 — Jose Ramirez batting at Logan Webb.
- 0.282, 0.687 — Jonathan Aranda batting vs. Charlie Morton.
- 0.279, 0.696 — Jeremy Pena batting at Jacob Lopez.
- 0.278, 0.664 — Thairo Estrada batting at Trevor Williams.
- 0.277, 0.676 — Brent Rooker batting vs. Colton Gordon.
- 0.276, 0.693 — Brendan Donovan batting at Sean Burke.
With two of the three game rained out on Wednesday will be made up with doubleheaders today, so be careful picking from the Pirates at the Tigers and the Cardinals at the White Sox. Donovan against Burke should be game one.
Rookie Gordon of the Astros allowed 37 hits in 30 2/3 innings with just four walks. He did strikeout 30, so the BABIP against him stands at .348. Wilson should match up well against Gordon.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting at least one hit:
- 0.343, 0.756 — Jacob Wilson batting vs. Colton Gordon.
- 0.289, 0.708 — Aaron Judge batting vs. Tyler Anderson.
- 0.286, 0.701 — Jose Ramirez batting at Logan Webb.
- 0.270, 0.698 — Ernie Clement batting vs. Ryne Nelson.
- 0.279, 0.696 — Jeremy Pena batting at Jacob Lopez.
- 0.268, 0.695 — Xavier Edwards batting vs. Cristopher Sanchez.
- 0.262, 0.695 — Ronald Acuna batting vs. Clay Holmes.
- 0.274, 0.694 — Trea Turner batting at Edward Cabrera.
- 0.276, 0.693 — Brendan Donovan batting at Sean Burke.
- 0.236, 0.692 — Luis Arraez batting at Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Judge stands as the consensus double down pick today, but he is just 1 for 9 with three walks and four strikeouts against Anderson in their regular season careers.
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!