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:

• 0.314 — Jeff McNeil batting against Zach Eflin.
• 0.307 — Trey Mancini batting against Ivan Nova.
• 0.299 — Anthony Rendon batting against Chad Bettis.
• 0.295 — Wilson Ramos batting against Zach Eflin.
• 0.292 — Howie Kendrick batting against Chad Bettis.
• 0.292 — Jose Altuve batting against Michael Pineda.
• 0.290 — Michael Brantley batting against Michael Pineda.
• 0.289 — Tim Anderson batting against Andrew Cashner.
• 0.288 — Adam C Eaton batting against Chad Bettis.
• 0.287 — Renato Nunez batting against Ivan Nova.

I had not seen Renato Nunez in the top ten before. He is basically the replacement at third base for Manny Machado. He is in his seasonal age 25 season, so right at the start of his prime. He hit well since joining the Orioles last year after poor performances in limited time in Oakland and Texas.

Here are the neural network picks:

• 0.314, 0.722 — Jeff McNeil batting against Zach Eflin.
• 0.292, 0.718 — Howie Kendrick batting against Chad Bettis.
• 0.299, 0.718 — Anthony Rendon batting against Chad Bettis.
• 0.292, 0.717 — Jose Altuve batting against Michael Pineda.
• 0.284, 0.714 — Jose Martinez batting against Zach Davies.
• 0.290, 0.710 — Michael Brantley batting against Michael Pineda.
• 0.274, 0.709 — J.D. Martinez batting against Spencer Turnbull.
• 0.307, 0.706 — Trey Mancini batting against Ivan Nova.
• 0.295, 0.704 — Wilson Ramos batting against Zach Eflin.
• 0.266, 0.704 — J.D. Martinez batting against Matt Boyd.

Note that the Red Sox and Tigers play a split admissions double header to day, so J.D. Martinez makes this list twice. McNeil is the unanimous choice with Rendon the consensus second choice. If Rendon still can’t play, Howie Kendrick would be the consensus third choice.

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/2UteSqU