Todd Helton, 1B, 1997-2013
Career Stats: .316/.414/.539, 2,519 hits, 369 HR, 1400+ R & RBI
In an era of incredible offensive numbers throughout the sport, Helton was a guy who had numbers that others simply couldn’t even fathom. In 2000, Helton led the entire league in batting average, on base, slugging percentage, hits, doubles (with 59!), and RBI, yet he finished 5th in the MVP voting!
Why was this happening?? Well, since the time baseball started in Colorado in 1993, balls have flown to the gaps of the expansive outfield in Colorado, and hard-hit balls have carried far enough to clear the deep fences in Coors Field, making many of the hitters who play for the Rockies have numbers that seemed drastically inflated by their home park.
However, one of the things that is remarkable about Helton’s career is that he didn’t have monster numbers at Coors and nowhere else. He actually put up an OPS+ of 133 in his career, and from 2000-2005, his worst OPS+ was 144, and he had four 160+ OPS+ seasons. He wasn’t just hitting the ball hard because he was in Coors. He was hitting the ball hard because he was an exceptional hitter.
The tragedy is that at age 34, Helton was diagnosed with a degenerative back condition that caused him only to play over 124 games and come to the plate over 491 times one time in the last 6 seasons of his career. Those 6 seasons of injury cost him 16 points of career batting average and OBP while costing him nearly 50 career points of slugging percentage.
Helton actually has very good numbers to make the Hall of Fame argument. His black ink is 16 vs. 27 of an average HOFer. His gray ink is 143 vs. 144. His Hall of Fame Monitor is 175 vs. 100. His Hall of Fame Standards score is 59 vs. an average HOFer score of 50. Helton’s JAWS score is 53.8 vs. a 54.2 score of an average HOF 1B. He could end up having a very good argument, but I’d imagine many will be surprised his numbers are this high.