Over the past 28 days - a number conveniently chosen because Baseball Reference lists it on the splits page - has hit, or really has not hit, .149/.233/.324. That's called "slugging Ryan Theriot's batting average," folks. Even Ryan Theriot does better than that.

This has officially freaked out a segment of the Cubs fanbase. People are also freaking out about Derrek Lee again - even though I asked them not to - because he's hitting .143/.143/.190 since the All-Star Break. (Incidently, Lee's overall seasonal line improved since I wrote that post.)

I'm going to, admittedly, go out on a slight limb here. This is a wager that is open to all other Cubs blogers, including the other Riders. (And if any, say, Brewers or Reds bloggers are interested in the bet, that'd be fine, too. Open to Cubs beat writers, too!)

I have Lee projected at .306/.382/.521 for the rest of the season, or a wOBA of .390. Similarly, Ramirez is projected to hit .288/.368/.523, wOBA of .384. (I'm using the Marcels, not the ZiPS, which in this case makes almost no difference at all.)

The bet, as it stands right now, is that over the next 30 days - so between tonight's game and the game against the Nationals on August 23rd - Aramis Ramirez will hit within one standard deviation of his projected wOBA or above. In order for the bet to to stand, Ramirez has to get at least 80 plate appearances. (Ramirez is on pace for 118 PAs over the next 30 games.) If Ramirez doesn't get 80 PAs during that time period, the bet shifts to Lee and his projected wOBA (within one standard deviation). wOBA is to be calculated using the weights published on Tango's website, and stats used to calculate wOBA for the time period will be from baseball-reference.com

The stakes are as follows - and are only in play if another blogger puts up a matching bet: if Ramirez (or, as a fallback, Lee) fails to do so, I will write a sonnet extolling the virtues of Ryan Theriot as a shortstop, baseball player and human being, to be published on Goat Riders of the Apocalypse no later than September 1st.

Please comment or e-mail me no later than the commencement of the Cubs-Marlins game tomorrow night if you want to be involved in this. Remember - there will be no Ryan Theriot sonnet if somebody doesn't match the bet.

Just in case, you know, I haven’t said enough about him yet. On May 21st, Bruce Miles wrote:

The reporter wanted to ask Ryan Theriot about stats.

"Uh, oh," the Cubs shortstop said.

No, this time, the stats are on Theriot's side. Not only did Theriot bring an on-base percentage of .410 and a batting average of .333 into Tuesday night's game against the Astros, he was tied for the National League lead in multihit games (20) with Houston's Lance Berkman and Atlanta's Chipper Jones.

That's some heady company for any player, especially one who ran afoul of the stats-oriented crowd last year when his numbers dropped precipitously in September.

…

Theriot won the starting shortstop job early last season but finished with an OBP of .326 and a slugging percentage of .346 for an OPS (on-base plus slugging) of only .672. Entering Tuesday, Theriot's OPS was a nice .828.

…

Theriot made some changes to his swing over the winter and came to spring training in good shape, proving that perhaps you can work and "grit" your way to better numbers.

So, did he prove that? Let’s take a look at the game logs. Since Bruce wrote that article, Theriot has hit .288/.368/.308, or a .678 OPS, pretty much a dead ringer for his production last season. Well, except for the fact that his OBP is higher than his SLG. [I have to take this moment to say, I saw that one coming. Again – I’m still not sure that it’s meaningful, other than for its novelty value.]

So, which is the real Ryan Theriot – the .828 OPS guy that Miles wrote about, or the .678 OPS guy he’s been since? Or is it somewhere inbetween - the .755 OPS guy he’s been if you combine the two together?

The problem is in looking at selective endpoints – good hitters go through cold streaks, and poor hitters have hot streaks. You need to look at a large number of plate appearances to get a bead on a player’s true talent level.

We can looking at the preseason projections of Theriot’s talent level – according to Cubs fans, looking at the Bleed Cubbie Blue community projections, or cold, heartless machines, looking at ZiPS, the picture is basically the same. Theriot’s performance has dropped substantially since his hot start to the season, and I expect continued decline out of Theriot.

I am not a magician. I don’t have a crystal ball. But I do have a spreadsheet. It thinks that, based on his performance to date, Theriot is most likely to hit .281/.346/.356 the rest of the season, or a .702 OPS.

I guess we’ll find out.