My first pick of 2011 will be Pablo Sandoval. Because I'm staring the season off right!

Erik (Dascenszofan)'s first pick of the year is Ian Desmond. Who?

Here's the archives of the chats from previous years.
2010: 8 comments
2009: 45 comments
2008: 87 comments
2008: 149 comments
2007: 143 comments</a>
2006: 36 comments
2005: 29 comments
2004: 8 comments

Want to know the best 20 players to use in Beat the Streak. Here's the players with most games with at least one hit:

130 Ichiro Suzuki

123 Nick Markakis

120 Robinson Cano
120 Billy Butler

119 Matt Holliday
119 Adrian Beltre

116 Michael Cuddyer
116 Miguel Cabrera

115 Mike Young
115 Juan Pierre
115 Casey McGehee
115 Derek Jeter
115 Vladimir Guerrero

113 Albert Pujols
113 Howie Kendrick

112 Marco Scutaro
112 Hunter Pence
112 Carlos Gonzalez

See the full list at http://bit.ly/guWtL9

111 Evan Longoria
111 Chase Headley
111 Adrian Gonzalez
111 Ryan Braun

yea, i picked Ian Desmond. He had a little green "Scotts" logo next to his name, so I picked it cuz it seemed important. He went 0 for 4.

Today I went with Fukudome. He went 2 for 4.

I received my pack of cards that you sent with your Beat The Streak invite. Here's the cards:

Andrew Bailey P OAK
Cliff Lee P PHI
Jon Niese P NYM
David Wright 3B NYM (from "Spot the Error" series)
Matt Garza P TB
Matt Suzuki C OAK
Carl Pavano P MIN

I was planning on starting each position player from the pack. That'll be quite easy seeing as 5 of the 7 cards are pitchers. So next on deck is David Wright.

Thanks for the pack, Matt!

You mean Kurt Suzuki right? And when I saw you playing Kurt Suzuki on BTS, I thought you got mixed up and actually wanted to play Ichiro Suzuki, the BTS king.

You're welcome for the pack. I'm hoping that I will make this a yearly tradition.

Thank you for the snail mail invite to join and the packet of baseball cards! If I knew anything about anything, I might join :P

The current members in our group:
-- klmaldre (my sister)
-- dascenzofan (my brother, aka unlikelymoose)
-- bradleydmajors (from bible study group)
-- typicalburgess (from bible study group)
-- ahyem34 (co-worker)
-- spudart (me)
This breaks our record for most people in the group!

Kristina's first day she started Big Poopie!

So far the longest streaks belong to spudart and dascenzofan with five games each.

Of my 11 picks so far, seven of them have been Chicago Cubs. I have gone with six different Cubs at that. Of the seven picks, six have resulted in hits and continuation of my streak! Go Cubs!

The Cubs selected thus far are:
Marlon Byrd, Starlin Castro, Geovany Soto, Jeff Baker, Kosuke Fukudome, and Alfonso Soriano

For the month of April, I'm playing all the players in my 2011 Topps Opening Day pack. Here's who I got:
– Justin Morneau (63 hits, in 81 games) 117 hits projected over 150 games
– Hunter Pence (112)
– Joey Votto (108)
– Pablo Sandoval (103)
– Chris Johnson (62 hits, 95 games) 98 hits projected over 150 games
– Carlos Pena (72)
The number in parenthesis is the number of games that player got at least one hit in 2010.

I also got Aroldis Chapman, a Reds pitcher. Therefore, I will also include a player who is facing the Reds pitching.

Wow. We have nine people in the league and all nine people made picks yesterday. Four of the picks were for Ichiro. (bradleydmajors, klmaldre, carvell7, leungs88)
http://www.spudart.org/screenshot/bts-20110412.png

so far Erik (dascenzofan) has the longest streak (5) and the longest current streak (3).

Wow. yesterday was a bad day for the streaks in our group. 6 of the 9 people had streaks end.
http://www.spudart.org/screenshot/20110415bts.png

leungs88 has 4 games going now. Will Ryan Braun get him to five and tie him with the longest streak so far this year?

leungs88's streak of five ended with Ichirio going 0-for-5 in a 7-0 Mariners loss. We now have three players tied with the longest streak of 5: dascenzofan, spudart, leungs88

Hey guys, playing mlb's bts down here in AZ. Found this blog, and wanted to get involved. I have never been in a "group" before so this could add a little more fun.

My strategy is consistent batters at the top of line-ups facing struggling pitchers.

My longest streak, last year was 11.

Is anyone buying the "picks of the day"? So what if a batter has a high avg vs. a particular pitcher over the course of 4 or 5 games... This said pitcher could be pitching awesome the last few weeks, OR the batter could be sucking the past few games. Has anyone done math on what % of the "picks of the day" actually get hits on that day? I bet its like 50%. Any thoughts?

I'm thinking Scotts and MLB are betting lazy people will just pick one of these randomly... no?

Asandner, it would be great to have you in our group. Send me an email on the form at http://www.spudart.org/blogs/contact and I'll send you the log-in details.

Asandner, I've thought about tallying up the averages for how MLB's "picks of day" perform. I think they have some valid choices. However, I tend to avoid their choices, because I don't like using mainstream players. Ichiro? Yawn. Too easy. For the month of April I'm playing only the players I got in my 2011 Topps Opening Day pack.

I'm going to try to report on streaks that are longer than 3 games.

christopher_burgess continues his streak to 4 with one of my favs, Pablo Sandoval going 1-for-4 with a homerun.

dascenzofan's streak of 3 paused at 3 last night as Darwin Barney and the Cubs had a rain-out

bradleydmajors cruised up to 3 with all solid Ichiro.

whoa! typicalburgess's streak is now 6 games. I'm not sure how it jumped from 4 to 6, but he's got the longest streak of the year so far! How far will chris go?

Question... If your picked player had a double header, does he need to get a hit in BOTH games, or just one? Anyone know? Just curious.

typicalburgess is now up to 8 games! Thanks to Andre Ethier and Robinson Cano.

We also have a total of six people in the league with streaks of 3+.

Asandner, if you pick a player on the day of a doubleheader, he has to get hits in BOTH games. MLB gives you a popup window warning you when you select a player on a doubleheader day. Last week I wanted to play Carlos Pena in the Cubs doubleheader, but it gave me the warning.

I believe this is the first year that MLB.com is doing this rule. In the past you could pick the player on a doubleheader game and they could get a hit in either game.

Well that's decent of them to give you a warning! If I we're giving away 5.6 mil I'd probably have that rule too, haha. Does that count for two hits tho?

I'm not sure if it counts for two games, you'd think it would, right?

Hey, the login for the group is:
http://www.spudart.org/amazing/
password: amazing99

I think I'm already in the group... I think I've been in the group for at least a week.

Oh i see you! asandner

What are people's strategies for picking players, if you don't mind me asking?

I've come up with a formula I hope will increase my odds... Batter must be hitting around 300 with plenty of plate appearances so far this season.
Must be facing a struggling pitcher, whose era is at least 5.00.
Batter is on home turf, pitcher is away. Batters team is above 500 on the season, pitcher's team below...

I also like to pick batters at the top of the line up... no real reason on that one except I feel they have a slight advantage.

Anyone else have any thoughts, or factors that play into their picks?

Asander, that's a great idea to share our strategies. I went through the past years of Beat the Streak comment boards and collected a total of nine strategies.

Beat the Streak Strategy #1: Two hits the day before
Beat the Streak Strategy #2: Geoff Jenkins
Beat the Streak Strategy #3: Pittsburg Pirates pitching
Beat the Streak Strategy #4: One hit per game percentage
Beat the Streak Strategy #5: Team pitching 30 days / Team hitting 7 days / Individual hitting 7 days
Beat the Streak Strategy #6: One baseball card pack
Beat the Streak Strategy #7: Top 30 players / Games with a hit
Beat the Streak Strategy #8: Ichiro
Beat the Streak Strategy #9: 300+ AVG / 5.00+ ERA / Home / Team .500+

That's right, yours appears as #9 ! (Thanks!)

I'll post all nine strategies on http://www.57hits.com Every day a new strategy will be posted. The first one is up now.

I wonder and pity the guy who forgets.
Maybe he moved and lost internet...

He fell from high places much closer to gold!
Maybe his laptop was stolen and sold…

Many a day, his batters hit well.
Maybe his rear-end graces a jail…

No one can figure just what’s in his brain!
I hope he’s not dead! ‘Cus that’d be a shame…

Oh the great streak of typicalburgess has ended at 9. Matt Kemp ended his streak by going 0-for-4 with a strikeout. Kemp had a 6 game hitting streak going.

Leungs88 is not far behind with 6. Will leungs88 reach double digits?!

My six game streak ended with Chris Johnson. I saw I had him going in the morning 197 batting average. He's facing Kyle Lohse with a opp avg of 174. But I had to leave for work, I forgot to change him. OUCH.

oh actually i had a five game streak. a 5-game hat 5:-)

16 people currently have a 21 hit streak, wow! This is only my second time playing beat the streak and I don't remember this many people have that kind of hit streak this early in the season. Or am I wrong?

I get the feeling this may be the year some one beats the streak!

For the month of April i went 20-for-26. That's a 76.9% clip. Pretty average.

My list of April picks:
4/1/2011 Justin Morneau 0-for-4
4/2/2011 Joey Votto 1-for-4
4/3/2011 Hunter Pence 3-for-4
4/4/2011 Justin Morneau 2-for-4
4/5/2011 Pablo Sandoval 1-for-3
4/6/2011 Joey Votto 2-for-4
4/7/2011 Hunter Pence 0-for-3
4/8/2011 Carlos Pena 1-for-4
4/9/2011 Justin Morneau 0-for-4
4/10/2011 Pablo Sandoval 1-for-4
4/11/2011 Joey Votto 1-for-3
4/12/2011 Hunter Pence 3-for-5
4/13/2011 Carlos Pena 0-for-0
4/14/2011 Chris Johnson 0-for-0
4/15/2011 Justin Morneau 0-for-3
4/16/2011 Pablo Sandoval 1-for-4
4/17/2011 Joey Votto 1-for-3
4/18/2011 Justin Morneau 0-for-0
4/19/2011 Joey Votto 0-for-3
4/20/2011 Pablo Sandoval 0-for-0
4/21/2011 Chris Johnson 1-for-4
4/22/2011 Hunter Pence 1-for-5
4/23/2011 Carlos Pena 0-for-0
4/24/2011 Justin Morneau 2-for-3
4/25/2011 Joey Votto 1-for-5
4/26/2011 Pablo Sandoval 2-for-4
4/27/2011 Chris Johnson 0-for-3
4/28/2011 Pablo Sandoval 1-for-4
4/29/2011 Joey Votto 1-for-3
4/30/2011 Pablo Sandoval 0-for-0

I just got to a 20 game streak, I love this game !

For the month of April, I went 21 for 27. That's 77.78%. April was my all-Cubs month.

In May, I am selecting only players that batting against the worst team pitching. As of right now those four teams are Houston, ChiSox, Kansas City, and LADodgers.

What the heck is going on with gottaweartheshades??? Guy has been at 23 for like 10 days! He keeps starting hitters who aren't even in the lineup.

I bet "gottaweartheshades" is so proud that he got up to 23, that he's now playing all guys that are injured, just so he can say he's got a long "active" streak.

May has not been too kind with me so far. This month I'm using the strategy of the top 30 players with the most GH from 2010. (GH = Games with a Hit). You’d think the top of the list should totally rock the start of May. After all, last year they were the best Beat the Streak players. The best!

Ichiro Suzuki 0-for-4
Nick Markakis 2-for-4
Robinson Cano 0-for-4
Tonight is Billy Butler.

Actually, this brings up an interesting stat. The number of goose eggs per month. In April I had 6 goose eggs. Which I'm not happy with a 76.9%. I'd like to be at a 85%. So in my book, six goose eggs in a month is not acceptable. I already have two goose eggs already! After three days. Yipes!

Moose, you also had 6 goose eggs in April. I was going to say I think we are going to do better in May, because we aren't going with crazy strategies like we did in April. But you might do better in May, but it's looking like I might not have a good percentage in May cuz of my two goose eggs. But this is BEAT THE STREAK, so that means to build a streak. And there are 25 days left in May. I could still potentially get a double-digit streak.

Does anyone think its wrong to just ride Etheir? I am split on it; Obviously the guy is doing something historic and has the potential to get a lot more hits, good for potential streakers. However it IS a total cop-out as well :)

I started ethier quite often last year but have only used him once or twice so far this year.

On a side note, gottaweartheshades is at 0 now after Ichiro gave him no love. Ironically funny to me after not playing for 2 weeks...

Is it wrong to ride Ethier? I suppose it comes down to why do you play Beat the Streak? While I certatinly would like to have a long streak, my main reason for playing is to have fun picking different players and trying different strategies. While Ichiro is by far the best Beat the Streak player EVER in the history of baseball, I rarely pick him, because it's just too easy and brainless.

I suppose that's it. It's too brainless. i like more thought to go into my picks. But for other people they just simply play to see if they can get a long streak. And that's fine. That's part of what makes Beat the Streak fun, is that it can engage fans on all levels. You don't have to have a big fantasy baseball team that you update every day. All you have to do is pick one player a day. And you can even go the super easy route of picking Ethier.

My strategy this month of playing the best 30 bts players from 2010 is totally tanking so far this month. I have three goose eggs in four days.

Oh no! dascenzofan had a 7-game hit streak ended yesterday by Vladimir Guerrero. Well, dascenzofan now you have a 7 game hat. 7:-)

Yesterday Aramis Ramirez continued Sparxmind's streak to 7 games. Welcome to the 7 hat club! 7:-) at first I doubted the Aramis pick, but so far this year Aramis has 22 GH (games with a hit). That puts him as #35th best in MLB. And the #1 Cub.

OUCH! rough day all around...

Sparxmind's 7-game streak came to an end with Ryan Braun. Sparxmind is the proud owner of a 7 hat. 7:-)

Who will be the first to break double digits?

ouch, sparx's 3-game streak ended with a "no selection"

Five people have a three game streak.
asandner
typicalburgess
dascenzofan
leungs88
bradleydmajors

Who will be the first to hit double-digits?!

Both three-game streaks of leungs88 and bradleydmajors ended yesterday with a "no selection." But the streaks of asandner, typicalburgess, and dascenzofan continued onto four games.

The four game streaks of asandner, typicalburgess, and dascenzofan ended yesterday.

Wow. Yesterday was a bad day for our group. Of the ten people that made a pick, eight of those players didn't get a hit. That means eight streaks got reset to a ZERO yesterday. Myself (spudart) and nickmaize are the lucky ones to have survived with a hit. My streak now gets up to a four-hat 4:-)
http://www.spudart.org/screenshot/20110516bts.png

I'm really good at picking players who don't play that day. My streak remains static at 4. But I am leading our group for current streaks.

I've been doing really bad lately. Don't know whats happening Frustrating.!

Alright! I've got a 5-hat on. 5:-) Last night Hunter Pence went 2-for-4. I have now tied my season-high of five games three times. Hopefully Carlos Gonzalez will bring me a six-hat tonight.

I need to brush up on my MLB players. Asander, you played Wilson Betemit yesterday? I never heard of him. And when I saw dascenzofan play Mitch Moreland, I thought it said Keith Moreland, the cubs outfielder/utility player in the mid-80s.

Six hat! 6:-) Thank you Carlos Gonzalez for getting a single and double last night! I have broken my personal best this year! Hopefully Evan Longoria will continue it to 7 games tonight.

Man. Evan Longoria ended my six-game streak. Evan has gotta stop focusing on saving people's lives and start getting some hits.

I'm starting to not like this game!

Asander, yeah. This month has not been kind to me either. So far in May I have eight goose eggs. To compare, in April I had six for the whole month. Although I am still going with the static strategy this month of merely going down the list of the players with the best GH (games with a hit) in 2010. http://www.57hits.com/beat-the-streak-strategy-7-top-30-players-games-with-a-hit

In June I will be employing a much more defined strategy. Hopefully with the aid of a recently purchased Filemaker.

The Cubs now have the 4th worst pitching staff for opponents batting average (in the past 30 days)
1 Houston 280
2 Minnesota .274
3 Kansas City .268
4 Chicago Cubs .268

Ever since my 9 game streak was ended (a long time ago!) I have not been as meticulous w/ my picks.

I must say, perhaps I was just more lucky with early streaks of a few games, which made me more determined to pick better each game.

On average it took me about 10-15 minutes to pick a batter. Now I would say I have batter picked in about 1 min...

I like the site 57hits.com, I think you have an opportunity for a popular site in the "bts community." Have you seen the one mlb.com has??? It's pretty lame.

Let me know if I can contribute any "research" to the site, and I will shoot you any ideas that may make it better as well :)

Nice work,

Thanks Asander! I haven't put much time into my picks lately. As my next comment will show, I did rather poorly in May. I appreciate your offer to help to any research for 57hits.com. I'd like to take you up on that. For now I need to get that site back and lively again. I haven't really posted to it in the past month. (I had a very busy project at work in the past couple months. But now i think things may lighten up a bit)

In May 2011, I went 18-for-29
That's a 62%

5/31/2011 Torii Hunter 0-for-3
5/30/2011 Brandon Phillips 0-for-4
5/29/2011 Rickie Weeks 3-for-5
5/28/2011 Prince Fielder 1-for-3
5/27/2011 Joey Votto 1-for-4
5/26/2011 Paul Konerko 0-for-4
5/25/2011 Alex Gonzalez 2-for-5
5/24/2011 Austin Jackson 1-for-5
5/23/2011 Alexei Ramirez 0-for-4
5/22/2011 Ryan Braun 1-for-4
5/21/2011 Adrian Gonzalez 2-for-5
5/20/2011 Chase Headley 0-for-1
5/19/2011 Evan Longoria 0-for-3
5/18/2011 Carlos Gonzalez 2-for-4
5/17/2011 Hunter Pence 2-for-4
5/16/2011 Marco Scutaro 0-for-0
5/15/2011 Howard Kendrick 1-for-4
5/14/2011 Albert Pujols 1-for-4
5/13/2011 Vladimir Guerrero 0-for-0
5/12/2011 Derek Jeter 1-for-4
5/11/2011 Casey McGehee 2-for-5
5/10/2011 Juan Pierre 0-for-4
5/09/2011 Michael Young 1-for-4
5/08/2011 Miguel Cabrera 1-for-4
5/07/2011 Michael Cuddyer 2-for-4
5/06/2011 Adrian Beltre 0-for-4
5/05/2011 Matt Holliday 2-for-4
5/04/2011 Billy Butler 0-for-4
5/03/2011 Robinson Cano 0-for-4
5/02/2011 Nick Markakis 2-for-4
5/01/2011 Ichiro Suzuki 0-for-4

I had 11 goose eggs in May! Wow, the goose was laying a lot of eggs that month.

I wonder if there is a way to "game" bts.... say you have a small group of guys who work together (a team) to make strategic picks in some sort of algorithm.

For example, the "team" has 10 members... each member creates 25 bts accounts. That gives the "team" 250 potential accounts to beat the streak. (249 more accounts than the average bts player has.)

Each team member would be required to spend an hour or so making their daily pick the night before or morning of based upon the greatest probabilities. However, the team would be making DIFFERENT picks from each-other, as to spread risk and optimize "gains"(like insurance).

Obviously there would have to be an approved player pool, of lets say 50 sluggers. And obviously with 250 accounts, certain players will be selected multiple times. But it comes back to making "the best picks" 250 times every single day.

Food for thought... :)

I hate lance berkman, I have started him 3 times and 3 times he has gotten no hits. If anyone wants for whatever reason, Lance to NOT get a hit that day, ask me to start him... I will, and he won't, I promise.