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:

• 0.312 — Jeff McNeil batting against Nick Pivetta.
• 0.304 — Wilson Ramos batting against Nick Pivetta.
• 0.283 — Pete Alonso batting against Nick Pivetta.
• 0.281 — J.D. Martinez batting against James Paxton.
• 0.280 — Amed Rosario batting against Nick Pivetta.
• 0.278 — Elvis Andrus batting against Jaime Barria.
• 0.277 — Jose Altuve batting against Marco Estrada.
• 0.276 — Whit Merrifield batting against Reynaldo Lopez.
• 0.275 — Javier Baez batting against Pablo Lopez.
• 0.274 — Michael Conforto batting against Nick Pivetta.

McNeil finally reached the majors in his prime, and has been hitting since he arrived. He’s batting .404 nearly three weeks into the season, and .343 in his first 78 games. He reaches base at a high rate, but mostly through hits. That makes him an excellent player for the Beat the Streak game. Pivetta allowed 24 hits in 13 1/3 innings this season.

Here are the neural network picks:

• 0.312, 0.717 — Jeff McNeil batting against Nick Pivetta.
• 0.304, 0.715 — Wilson Ramos batting against Nick Pivetta.
• 0.277, 0.712 — Jose Altuve batting against Marco Estrada.
• 0.281, 0.706 — J.D. Martinez batting against James Paxton.
• 0.278, 0.700 — Elvis Andrus batting against Jaime Barria.
• 0.268, 0.700 — Jean Segura batting against Steven Matz.
• 0.276, 0.693 — Whit Merrifield batting against Reynaldo Lopez.
• 0.256, 0.692 — Howie Kendrick batting against Dereck Rodriguez.
• 0.262, 0.691 — Anthony Rendon batting against Dereck Rodriguez.
• 0.264, 0.689 — Michael Brantley batting against Marco Estrada.
• 0.275, 0.689 — Javier Baez batting against Pablo Lopez.

It seems like a good night to double down on Mets. Both systems agree that McNeil and Ramos are the top two choices.

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/2Grg0Yk