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:
- 0.309, 0.736 — Luis Arraez batting at Logan Webb.
- 0.303, 0.704 — Ezequiel Tovar batting at Miles Mikolas.
- 0.302, 0.705 — Aaron Judge batting vs. Zebby Matthews.
- 0.295, 0.717 — Miguel Andujar batting vs. Taijuan Walker.
- 0.289, 0.680 — Hunter Goodman batting at Miles Mikolas.
- 0.287, 0.689 — Lenyn Sosa batting vs. Chris Paddack.
- 0.287, 0.693 — Manny Machado batting at Logan Webb.
- 0.284, 0.673 — Jordan Beck batting at Miles Mikolas.
- 0.283, 0.671 — Warming Bernabel batting at Miles Mikolas.
- 0.282, 0.681 — Cody Bellinger batting vs. Zebby Matthews.
It looks like a good day for the Rockies, for a change. Hitter put the ball in play against Mikolas this season, and good things happen when the ball is struck fair. Arraez owns a 9 for 17 with one walk, one sac fly, and no strikeouts against Webb. So Log5 does a good job here of recognizing that Arraez should hit Webb well.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting at least one hit:
- 0.309, 0.736 — Luis Arraez batting at Logan Webb.
- 0.295, 0.717 — Miguel Andujar batting vs. Taijuan Walker.
- 0.302, 0.705 — Aaron Judge batting vs. Zebby Matthews.
- 0.303, 0.704 — Ezequiel Tovar batting at Miles Mikolas.
- 0.287, 0.693 — Manny Machado batting at Logan Webb.
- 0.287, 0.689 — Lenyn Sosa batting vs. Chris Paddack.
- 0.260, 0.688 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting vs. Cade Cavalli.
- 0.274, 0.685 — Ivan Herrera batting vs. Tyler Dollander.
- 0.282, 0.681 — Cody Bellinger batting vs. Zebby Matthews.
- 0.289, 0.680 — Hunter Goodman batting at Miles Mikolas.
- 0.262, 0.680 — Freddie Freeman batting at Jose Soriano.
The two systems offer good agreement at the top of the list, with Arraez the top pick in both cases. Andujar, Judge, and Tover are tied for the double down pick. Note that there are jut 49 days left in the season, so if you are starting a new streak, you’ll need to do some double downs to reach 57 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!