Colorado Rockies: Where Todd Helton landed in the FanSided HOF vote

With Colorado Rockies fans awaiting the final tally from the Baseball Hall of Fame and news of exactly where Todd Helton will finish in this year’s voting, we take a look at how FanSided baseball site editors voted in their mock ballots.

While Todd Helton made great strides in 2021 toward induction in Cooperstown, it is expected he will fall short of the necessary 75 percent to earn baseball immortality this offseason. When it comes to the mock Baseball Hall of Fame voting from the various experts who run FanSided’s baseball sites (including two of us at Rox Pile), Helton fell short of induction as well.

As of Sunday morning, in his third season on the ballot, Helton had been named in 53.4 percent of the 163 ballots that had been made public or had been turned in anonymously. Through those 163 ballots, Helton had made the biggest gain of any player at +28. You can see the impressive jumps that Helton has made in this voting cycle over previous years by clicking here.

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You can see all of the official FanSided votes and the reasoning behind them by clicking here. In our mock voting, no member of the 2021 ballot earned the necessary 75 percent from FanSided voters, which could also reflect reality when the final Hall of Fame votes are tallied from members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA).

In the FanSided Mock Baseball Hall of Fame vote totals, Barry Bonds came the closest to earning a spot in the Hall of Fame, being named on 25 of the 39 ballots (64 percent) submitted by FanSided experts. Behind Bonds were Chipper Jones and Roger Clemens (22 of 39, 59 percent), Scott Rolen (56 percent), and Curt Schilling, Billy Wagner, and Helton at 51 percent (20 of 39).

In talking with some fellow site experts, some cited Helton playing at Coors Field as a reason why they didn’t vote for him. One said that Helton’s numbers didn’t meet his criteria for the Hall, stating that Paul Konerko (who fell off the ballot after just one voting cycle) finished with more home runs, RBI, and All-Star Game appearances than Helton. However, no mention was made of Helton’s higher OPS+ (including an incredible 2001 between him and outfielder (and Hall of Fame member) Larry Walker) and many other stats where Helton exceeded over Konerko. It shows that voting is indeed an inexact science as much is left to interpretation and emotion.

Looking at BBWAA ballot trends, it’s very likely that Helton will join Walker in Cooperstown within the next couple of years. That’s very good for Rockies fans who are still looking to have players from Helton to Nolan Arenado recognized on a national level for being the great players they are without “Coors” being used as a reason to dismiss their accomplishments.

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