Todd Helton - The Hall of Fame Case

we are currently in the off season so you know what that means free agent rumors setting lofty expectations for your team and of course finding out where edwin jackson plays next he's played for 14 different teams so i wonder if he will get another chance in 2021 in his age 37 season to play for his 15th franchise but we're not here to talk about edwin jackson we're talking about the hall of fame ballot a while ago i made a poll asking you guys whose hall of fame case should i review i recently reviewed joey votto's case now it's time to look at todd helton's case helton's hall of fame case is one of the more intriguing on this year's ballot because the home stadium for his entire career was on 2001 blake street in denver colorado also known as coors field so the question is whether helton can follow in the footsteps of larry walker and become the second player to be inducted into cooper's town as a rocky before we start if you want to check out some more todd helton related content go check out baseball quotes video on why todd helton should be inducted into the hall of fame alright let's start at the beginning he would be drafted in the 1995 draft by the colorado rockies at 8th overall at this point the rockies were in their third year since joining the league as an expansion franchise after a short stint in 1997 helton finished in second place in rookie of the year voting after a full stint with the rockies in 1998. if you watched my last video you may have known this already the first of many elite level seasons began in 2000 where helton finished fifth in mvp voting imagine producing 8.9 war the most in the national league and receiving only one first place mvp vote this era of baseball was just insane well helton didn't have a shortage of mvp level seasons as between the years of 2000 and 2004 helton received many mvp votes and for good reason during this time span helton ranked near the top of many offensive categories also he became the first player in mlb history to hit at least a 315 average with at least 25 home runs and 95 rbis in each of his first seven full seasons apart from the home runs and rbis helton was also the king of doubles he was one of only two players to hit at least 35 doubles in every single season during this span also he was one of only three players with at least 50 doubles in multiple seasons what this list shows me apart from todd helton being the king of doubles is that nomar garciaparra was a way better player than i realized in the same season where helton finished 5th in nlmvp voting despite having 8.9 war garcia para finished 9th in al mvp voting despite hitting 372 and just look at the rest of this ballot like i said this era of baseball was something else speaking of accolades all of helton's five all-star appearances were during this five-season span as well as his silver sluggers and gold gloves but that doesn't mean he stopped producing at an elite level between 2005 and 2007 helton performed at a near peak level despite entering his early 30s he didn't receive any accolades or all-star appearances as his home run and rbi totals diminished but he was still a key contributor notably on a 2007 rockies team that made the world series his most infamous contribution during this season was his walk off home run against the dodgers in mid-september which kickstarted a stretch where the rockies ended their season with a record of 14-1 including a game 163 win against the padres however in august 2008 helton was diagnosed with a degenerative back condition that forced him to have surgery and miss the rest of the season yet he was somehow able to perform back to his normal self the very next season netting him some mvp votes however the rest of his career was filled with stints on the il he retired at the conclusion of the 2013 season and less than one year later he became the first player to have their number retired by the rockies organization and that's the career of todd helton unfortunately he was only part of two playoff runs one of which his team lost in the divisional series if there is one video that i think represents helton's entire career in colorado it's his last career at bat with vin scully on commentary oh no isn't life the pits i mean you would think one time and he still gets a standing ovation hilton spent all of his peak years as a superstar on a mediocre team but you have to respect his decision to stay in colorado throughout those years so as we look at his career stats and think back on his dominance between 2000 and 2004 on face value it's easy to see why helton has a strong case for the hall of fame also i know i haven't gone into hilton's defense apart from his gold gloves but make no mistake helton was given those awards for a reason if you look at these standard counting stats for a first baseman helton's career stats rank towards the top if you are more of a fan of sabermetrics his career total zone runs which is the number of runs above or below average the player was worth based on the number of plays made he sits second all time among first basemen then when we compare his hall of fame metrics to first baseman in the hall of fame we see that he's pretty close to the average first base hall of famer however his career war is a little lacking so some voters may not believe helton had the longevity to be a hall of famer career longevity has proven to be an issue that players on the ballot can't seem to overcome like andrew jones and jeff kent although career longevity is far from the only obstacle that helton has in front of him we need to talk about the elephant in the room the core's effect if you don't know what the core's effect is basically because coarse field is 1 mile above sea level five times higher than the second highest elevated park in the league rocky's players tend to perform much better at home than on the road because baseballs travel farther at higher altitudes this was the main narrative as to why it took 10 years for larry walker to be voted into the hall of fame walker's home and road splits during his 10 seasons with the rockies show two completely different players one hall of fame caliber player and one all-star level player if high school math taught me anything it's that one hall of fame stat line plus one all-star stat line equals a borderline hall of fame career and that's not anything against walker i believe he definitely deserves his place in cooperstown but you can't ignore the clear impact that coors field had on his career now let's look at helton his own career home and road splits show a very similar trend to larry walker although larry walker did not spend his whole career in colorado if we look at overall rankings of players since 1908 and compare their career home ops to their overall career ops walker and helton are among the top eight of all time although a comparison between career home ops and career road ops shows an even larger disparity however it's important to note that on an individual level walker and helton were the best at hitting in coors field compared to rocky's teammates and the rest of the league so while voters punished walker and could punish helton for hitting in coors field it's important to note that they were the best at doing so this is why it's difficult to consider hypothetical stat lines such as this one showing what would happen if helton spent his entire career with the padres who drafted helton in the 1992 draft before moving on to college helton would have had to play in two pitchers parks qualcomm stadium and petco park however you have to remember that helton would have probably made adjustments to his home stadiums would he have been able to produce numbers similar to his course numbers there is no clear answer and even if there was it shouldn't matter because it's just a hypothetical so what happens now well this is helton's third year on the ballot and he will likely garner more votes larry walker didn't reach the 29 mark until his eighth year on the ballot he went from sitting at 10 in his fourth year to reaching 76 percent in his final year i'm sure that the rise of sabermetrics coincided with walker's ascent to cooperstown enshrinement pelton may be on the same route but unlike walker helton can't say that he achieved accolades outside of coors field recent hall of fame ballot results have shown that negative player narratives outside of stats have a significant impact on whether a player is hall of fame worthy as a result in my opinion helton is the definition of borderline hall of famer in terms of both narrative and statistics if helton does make the hall of fame it won't be until the middle of this decade at the very least do i think he eventually makes it i think he will because i think a positive narrative that helton possesses is that he stayed with one team for his entire career despite the lack of playoff success also helton's number was the first and only number to be retired by said team regardless of where he played the majority of his games i think that narrative is something special what do you guys think will todd helton make the hall of fame one day leave your thoughts down in the comments leave a like if you enjoyed the video and subscribe for more content just like this thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: SportStorm

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Keywords: mlb, baseball, mlb hall of fame, baseball hall of fame, todd helton, todd helton rockies, larry walker, larry walker rockies, the coors effect, coors field, coors field rockies, colorado rockies, rockies mlb, rockies hall of fame, todd helton hall of fame, 2021 mlb hall of fame, larry walker hall of fame, sportstorm, 2021 baseball hall of fame

Id: _x8-JKsZHEM

Length: 11min 32sec (692 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 04 2020