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 against starting pitchers:
- 0.316 — Jung Hoo Lee batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.304 — Tyler Fitzgerald batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.291 — Heliot Ramos batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.290 — Steven Kwan batting against Simeon Woods Richardson.
- 0.288 — Bo Bichette batting against Tanner Houck.
- 0.278 — Mike Yastrzemski batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.275 — Wilmer Flores batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.273 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting against Tanner Houck.
- 0.272 — Christian Koss batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.271 — Sam Huff batting against Kyle Freeland.
With limited action today, this list may be more about Freeland and Houck than the hitters. Yastrzemski owns more than a handful of PA against Freeland and is 8 for 18 with two walks and just two strikeouts. Guerrero stands 7 for 20 against Houck with three K and no walks.
The NN produces this list of batters with a high probability of collecting at least one hit:
- 0.316, 0.698 — Jung Hoo Lee batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.290, 0.692 — Steven Kwan batting against Simeon Woods Richardson.
- 0.304, 0.691 — Tyler Fitzgerald batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.288, 0.683 — Bo Bichette batting against Tanner Houck.
- 0.243, 0.683 — Bobby Witt Jr. batting against Shane Baz.
- 0.273, 0.674 — Vladimir Guerrero Jr. batting against Tanner Houck.
- 0.291, 0.674 — Heliot Ramos batting against Kyle Freeland.
- 0.265, 0.673 — Trea Turner batting against Bradley Lord.
- 0.266, 0.672 — Austin Hays batting against Matthew Liberatore.
- 0.250, 0.671 — Brendan Donovan batting against Andrew Abbott.
- 0.260, 0.671 — Jarren Duran batting against Jose Berrios.
Lee tops both lists, and currently owns a seven game hit streak, one third of Bobby Witt‘s active streak. Lee owns a low K rate with a high BABIP, especially this season, making him a good candidate to extend a streak. With only 286 PA under his belt, his numbers are still regressed quite a bit toward the .215 MLB hit average, so his .698 might be a floor rather than a ceiling. Fitzgerald comes in as the consensus double down pick.
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!