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:

• 0.319 — Elvis Andrus batting against Matt Harvey.
• 0.289 — Domingo Santana batting against Carlos Carrasco.
• 0.286 — J.D. Martinez batting against J.A. Happ.
• 0.284 — Dee Gordon batting against Carlos Carrasco.
• 0.279 — Jose Altuve batting against Frankie Montas.
• 0.277 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Nathan Eovaldi.
• 0.277 — Melky Cabrera batting against Spencer Turnbull.
• 0.275 — David Peralta batting against Kevin Gausman.
• 0.275 — Marcell Ozuna batting against Corbin Burnes.
• 0.273 — Timothy Beckham batting against Carlos Carrasco.
• 0.273 — Mitch Haniger batting against Carlos Carrasco.
• 0.273 — Jose Martinez batting against Corbin Burnes.
• 0.273 — Shin-Soo Choo batting against Matt Harvey.

Andrus is off to a great start in 2019. He’s hitting .403 with just two walks, meaning his .420 OBP is based almost entirely on hits. He also collect eight extra-base hits. I would think he’s barreling up the ball, but Statcast says no.

Here are the neural network picks:

• 0.319, 0.731 — Elvis Andrus batting against Matt Harvey.
• 0.279, 0.714 — Jose Altuve batting against Frankie Montas.
• 0.286, 0.710 — J.D. Martinez batting against J.A. Happ.
• 0.275, 0.707 — David Peralta batting against Kevin Gausman.
• 0.271, 0.701 — Anthony Rendon batting against Jeff Samardzija.
• 0.268, 0.700 — Jean Segura batting against Zack Wheeler.
• 0.264, 0.698 — Howie Kendrick batting against Jeff Samardzija.
• 0.277, 0.697 — Melky Cabrera batting against Spencer Turnbull.
• 0.277, 0.694 — DJ LeMahieu batting against Nathan Eovaldi.
• 0.265, 0.693 — Christian Yelich batting against Michael Wacha.

The two systems are in agreement about Andrus, with J.D. Martinez the consensus second pick. Martinez is four for 20 career against Happ, but with just three strikeouts. The match-up has not award Martinez for putting the ball in play.

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/2UY92lR