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:
- 0.307, 0.736 — Jacob Wilson batting at Mitch Keller.
- 0.294, 0.679 — Luis Rengifo batting at Bradley Blalock.
- 0.285, 0.675 — Luke Keaschall batting vs. Parker Messick.
- 0.283, 0.693 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting at Michael Lorenzen.
- 0.283, 0.655 — Carter Kieboom batting at Bradley Blalock.
- 0.282, 0.689 — Ernie Clement batting at Michael Lorenzen.
- 0.282, 0.683 — Gabriel Moreno batting vs. Taijuan Walker.
- 0.281, 0.655 — Denzer Guzman batting at Bradley Blalock.
- 0.280, 0.672 — Josh Jung batting vs. Janson Junk.
- 0.279, 0.653 — Sebastian Rivero batting at Bradley Blalock.
- 0.279, 0.711 — Luis Arraez batting at Davis Martin.
The list generated by the program doesn’t have roster status, so if the last team played for was the Angels, the batter gets evaluated against the Angels’ opponent. The original list was littered with Angels batters, but most were removed as they are no longer on the roster. It’s a very weak offense.
Wilson owns a five-game hit streak.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting at least one hit:
- 0.307, 0.736 — Jacob Wilson batting at Mitch Keller.
- 0.279, 0.711 — Luis Arraez batting at Davis Martin.
- 0.266, 0.705 — Miguel Andujar batting vs. Shota Imanaga.
- 0.283, 0.693 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting at Michael Lorenzen.
- 0.262, 0.690 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting vs. Max Scherzer.
- 0.282, 0.689 — Ernie Clement batting at Michael Lorenzen.
- 0.261, 0.684 — Nico Hoerner batting at Nick Lodolo.
- 0.282, 0.683 — Gabriel Moreno batting vs. Taijuan Walker.
- 0.273, 0.682 — Jackson Chourio batting at Sonny Gray.
- 0.256, 0.682 — Chandler Simpson batting vs. Garrett Crochet.
Wilson is the unanimous top pick, with Guerrero the double down choice by consensus.
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!