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:
- 0.321, 0.717 — Freddie Freeman batting vs. Kyle Freeland.
- 0.306, 0.688 — Hyeseong Kim batting vs. Kyle Freeland.
- 0.305, 0.692 — Andy Pages batting vs. Kyle Freeland.
- 0.301, 0.694 — Shohei Ohtani batting vs. Kyle Freeland.
- 0.296, 0.682 — Miguel Rojas batting vs. Kyle Freeland.
- 0.296, 0.677 — Will Smith batting vs. Kyle Freeland.
- 0.292, 0.680 — Mookie Betts batting vs. Kyle Freeland.
- 0.290, 0.710 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting at Logan Allen.
- 0.290, 0.676 — Teoscar Hernandez batting vs. Kyle Freeland.
- 0.290, 0.725 — Jacob Wilson batting vs. Payton Tolle.
Freeland pitched very well his last time out, but overall it looks like the Dodgers should have another good offensive night.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting at least one hit:
- 0.290, 0.725 — Jacob Wilson batting vs. Payton Tolle.
- 0.321, 0.717 — Freddie Freeman batting vs. Kyle Freeland.
- 0.290, 0.710 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting at Logan Allen.
- 0.286, 0.708 — Romy Gonzalez batting at Mason Barnett.
- 0.263, 0.698 — Luis Arraez batting vs. Andrew Abbott.
- 0.301, 0.694 — Shohei Ohtani batting vs. Kyle Freeland.
- 0.305, 0.692 — Andy Pages batting vs. Kyle Freeland.
- 0.242, 0.692 — Miguel Andujar batting at Nick Pivetta.
- 0.280, 0.691 — Xavier Edwards batting vs. Jake Irvin.
- 0.274, 0.690 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting vs. Jason Alexander.
Romy Gonzalez was just off the bottom of each list and owns a twelve-game hit streak, the longest in the majors currently. Freeman is the consensus top pick, with Ohtani and Pages tying for the consensus double down choice.
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!