Colorado Rockies: The Hall of Fame case for Larry Walker

Thus far with about 16 percent of the ballots in, both of the Colorado Rockies candidates for the Baseball Hall of Fame (Todd Helton and Larry Walker) would fall short of election. Helton is trailing Walker by a wide margin but as Rockies fans know, both of them are more than deserving of election to the Hall of Fame (as long as you do your objective research). A few weeks ago, we made the case for Helton for the Hall of Fame but today, we will make the case for Larry Walker.

Larry Walker is in his penultimate season on the writer’s ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Whether he makes it with the writers or not, the induction of Lee Smith and Harold Baines (particularly, of Baines) helps the case for Walker if he makes the Veterans Committee. I won’t go into all the details of Baines but if you objectively look at his stats, he simply is not a Hall of Famer compared to his peers.

However, for Walker, as of Wednesday afternoon, with 66 ballots in the Baseball Hall of Fame Tracker by Ryan Thibodaux, which is about 16 percent, Walker is on 44 of those ballots, or 66.7 percent, which would still mean that Walker is 8 percent short of induction. But of the 44 ballots that Walker has been on, he wasn’t on 10 of those ballots last year so at least he is headed in the right direction.

Even though he’s headed in the right direction, he should already be in the Hall of Fame. So, without further ado, let’s look at his case.

The biggest knock against Walker is that he was injury prone…and it is a valid argument. In the 17 seasons he spent in the majors, he only played more than 150 games once (1997) and he only played between 140 and 150 games in a season three other times (1992, 2001, and 2003).

Be that as it may, offensively, he still posted five 25 home run, 100+ RBI seasons plus another season with 93 RBI and two more seasons with 23 home runs. He also posted an OPS+ of 141 for his career and six seasons with an OPS+ of 150 or above (minimum of 100 games played per season).

If you’re looking for “bold-faced type,” (aka league leading categories), he led the league in doubles once with 44 (1994), homers once with 49 (1997), he led the NL in batting average three times (1998-99, 2001), on-base percentage twice (1997, 1999), slugging percentage twice (’97 and ’99), OPS twice (’97, ’99), and total bases once (’97).

Looking at his accolades, he was a 7x winner of the NL Gold Glove Award, a 5x All-Star, 3x Silver Slugger Award winner, and a 3x winner of the NL batting title. He also won the NL MVP award in 1997. He also ranked in MVP voting 8 times.

Personally, I look for 8 Hall of Fame seasons for a player to be a Hall of Famer and it helps if they are altogether, because it shows a period of extended dominance. For Walker, with his injuries it is tough to find 8 seasons but I’m flexible, particularly if the seasons played were particularly dominant. I think a career slash of .313/.400/.565 is extremely dominant, especially when you see five seasons in which Walker hit at least .338/.421/.602 from 1997-99 and 2001-02.

He also has a career WAR of 72.7, which is 86th best in baseball history. The next seven players above him at Hall of Famers and three of the four players directly below him are or will be Hall of Famers. Derek Jeter is directly below Walker at 87 and he will be on the ballot for the first (and probably only time) next season. The only other player directly below him is Rafael Palmeiro, who famously pointed his finger at members of Congress saying he never took steroids then proceeded to fail a drug test a few months later so it’s obvious to see why he isn’t in the Hall.

Another excuse that voters use is that Walker played at Coors Field for half of his games for 10 seasons. So, let’s look at the differential between Coors Field and other stadiums.

More from Rox Pile

• A Colorado Rockies Thanksgiving
• Colorado Rockies: What if Todd Helton had played football instead?
• Colorado Rockies: Charlie Blackmon out for the season
• Colorado Rockies: Injuries shift look of roster ahead of Dodgers series
• Colorado Rockies: Has Sean Bouchard earned a second look in 2023?

Defensively, outside of the seven Gold Gloves, the numbers show that those awards were warranted, particularly through the 2003 season (his last full season with the Rockies).

His Total Zone (or TZ, which is the stat that Defensive Runs Saved, or DRS, replaced starting with the 2003 season) was at or above league average in season between 1989 (rookie year) and 2003 with the exception of 1999 (in which he still won a Gold Glove Award). When it went to DRS in 2003, he had  10 DRS before it started going down in 2004 and 2005 before his retirement, which is to be expected as a player ages.

He also was known for his arm in right field and, total, in his career, he had 150 assists, which is 18th all-time, just ahead of Hall of Famers Tony Gwynn and Al Kaline and just behind Jesse Barfield and Dwight Evans, who were also known for their arms in right field (and Evans has been featured on Veterans Committee ballots before).

Final Thoughts

As you can see, you can make a pretty good case for Walker being in the Hall of Fame. Obviously, his injury history and his Coors/road splits don’t play in his favor.

However, the biggest two reasons, in my opinion, for Walker not getting the votes needed for induction are an ignorance and/or bias to Coors Field and votes for players that have steroid allegations (proven or unproven) like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Gary Sheffield, and Manny Ramirez, the first four of which have been on five or more ballots, including this current ballot. Bonds and Clemens have also each received nearly 60 percent of the vote last year, their highest ever.

Even a vote for players with a cloud of suspicion (or proven fact) doesn’t change the fact that Walker is one of the best players of all-time and is Hall of Fame worthy but whether he gets enough votes this year, next year, on a Veterans Committee, or ever remains to be seen.