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:
- 0.301, 0.705 — Romy Gonzalez batting vs. Cal Quantrill.
- 0.301, 0.701 — Chandler Simpson batting at Justin Verlander.
- 0.301, 0.712 — Bo Bichette batting vs. Patrick Corbin.
- 0.292, 0.701 — Ernie Clement batting vs. Patrick Corbin.
- 0.291, 0.702 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting vs. Patrick Corbin.
- 0.288, 0.688 — Kerry Carpenter batting at Zebby Matthews.
- 0.287, 0.693 — Yandy Diaz batting at Justin Verlander.
- 0.287, 0.715 — Miguel Andujar batting vs. Quinn Priester.
- 0.286, 0.683 — Alex Bregman batting vs. Cal Quantrill.
- 0.286, 0.686 — Alejandro Kirk batting vs. Patrick Corbin.
No one expected Romy Gonzalez and Chandler Simpson at the top of the list. Both batters walk very little, so their batting averages are close to their hit averages. Gonzalez strikes out a ton, Simpson puts the bat on the ball. Both produce high BABIPs. Batters make a lot of contact against Quantrill, and he allows a high BABIP. Verlander, at this point in his career, also allows a high BABIP. Simpson is a starter, Gonzalez is more of a bench player, but lately Gonzalez is starting more.
Note that both are tied with Bo Bichette to three decimal places.
The NN produced this list of batters with a high probability of collecting at least one hit:
- 0.287, 0.715 — Miguel Andujar batting vs. Quinn Priester.
- 0.280, 0.712 — Xavier Edwards batting at Brayan Bello.
- 0.301, 0.712 — Bo Bichette batting vs. Patrick Corbin.
- 0.301, 0.705 — Romy Gonzalez batting vs. Cal Quantrill.
- 0.291, 0.702 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting vs. Patrick Corbin.
- 0.292, 0.701 — Ernie Clement batting vs. Patrick Corbin.
- 0.301, 0.701 — Chandler Simpson batting at Justin Verlander.
- 0.287, 0.693 — Yandy Diaz batting at Justin Verlander.
- 0.264, 0.692 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting vs. Sean Burke.
- 0.269, 0.692 — Jeremy Pena batting vs. Rico Garcia.
Andujar comes out on top on another low probability day. He’s hitting .370/.469/.778 since joining the Reds. That’s with a .407 BABIP. Bichette and Gonzalez stand as the consensus top two picks, however.
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!