Beat the Streak Picks

For the past two 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. If you find this useful, please support Baseball Musings with a donation.

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.

For 2019, I am just going to publish the Log5 hit averages and the NN probabilities with parks factored in. I am keeping track of the results here. I added a graph that gives a visual representation of the probability and success each day.

First, the Log5 Method picks:

• 0.277 — Dee Gordon batting against Wade Miley.
• 0.275 — Whit Merrifield batting against Carlos Carrasco.
• 0.275 — Jose Altuve batting against Wade LeBlanc.
• 0.271 — Elvis Andrus batting against Michael Fiers.
• 0.268 — Charlie Blackmon batting against Drew Pomeranz.
• 0.268 — Melky Cabrera batting against Patrick Corbin.
• 0.267 — Michael Brantley batting against Wade LeBlanc.
• 0.267 — Anthony Rendon batting against Trevor Williams.
• 0.267 — Nolan Arenado batting against Drew Pomeranz.
• 0.266 — Domingo Santana batting against Wade Miley.

Gordon is off to a great start in terms of hit average. His BA stands at .365 this morning with a .375 OBP, so almost all his OBP comes from hits. He’s 19 for 58 for a very hit .328 hit average. He is five for 20 against Miley in his career with no walks and six strikeouts.

Here are the neural network picks:

• 0.275, 0.706 — Jose Altuve batting against Wade LeBlanc.
• 0.277, 0.697 — Dee Gordon batting against Wade Miley.
• 0.267, 0.694 — Anthony Rendon batting against Trevor Williams.
• 0.275, 0.692 — Whit Merrifield batting against Carlos Carrasco.
• 0.267, 0.691 — Michael Brantley batting against Wade LeBlanc.
• 0.271, 0.691 — Elvis Andrus batting against Michael Fiers.
• 0.255, 0.688 — David Peralta batting against Chris Paddack.
• 0.255, 0.687 — Wilson Ramos batting against Kyle Wright.
• 0.248, 0.687 — J.D. Martinez batting against David Hess.
• 0.256, 0.686 — Howie Kendrick batting against Trevor Williams.
• 0.268, 0.686 — Melky Cabrera batting against Patrick Corbin.

Altuve pops to the top of this list, as his long term hit average is very good and he is hitting well lately, with five multi-hit games in his last seven. Gordon is the consensus first pick, Altuve the consensus second pick if you want to double down.

Chris Davis is at the bottom of the NN list with a .509 probability of getting a hit. The program regresses his hit average to .178 where the league average for position players is .218.

I do not guarantee results. Your best pick is going to have about a 25% chance of not getting a hit. Good luck!

from baseballmusings.com http://bit.ly/2UyyFtK