Colorado Rockies: Projecting Todd Helton’s Hall of Fame results
Entering his fourth year on the ballot, former Colorado Rockies first baseman Todd Helton will be looking to improve on his 44.9% share of votes from BBWAA voters. After making a sizable jump last season with two new spots open up on the ballot (thanks to Larry Walker and Derek Jeter), it was foreseeable that Helton would make a jump. But what’s in store for him this year? Should we expect that he’ll make another big jump and inch even closer to being elected to the Hall of Fame? Or are there other roadblocks in his way to making further progress?
Let’s take a look at how this year’s Hall of Fame ballot could shake out for former Colorado Rockies first baseman Todd Helton
There aren’t a ton of new players on the ballot that may threaten Helton’s progress, but I do see three as a potential roadblock for Helton making progress this year:
David Ortiz
Alex Rodriguez
Mark Teixeira
The biggest threat of these three will be David Ortiz. While Big Papi doesn’t surpass Helton in terms of WAR (regardless of whether you’re using FanGraphs or Baseball Reference as the source) he is undoubtedly one of the biggest faces of baseball over the past 20 years who had many big moments in both the regular season and the playoffs. His advanced stats are more than respectable (55.3 bWAR, 51.0 fWAR, 140 wRC+, 141 OPS+) and he is certainly going to find his way on ballots whether it’s a 10 player ballot voter or a small hall guy.
The biggest question with David Ortiz is how voters will view him as someone who was mainly a designated hitter. His advanced stats don’t quite measure up the same as a guy like Edgar Martinez (who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2019) so if voters are using Martinez as a bar then Ortiz may be a touch underwhelming statistically. The DH label may be Ortiz’s own “Coors” factor that holds him back from some voters backing him. Ultimately I expect Ortiz to be elected at some point in his 10 years, but in the meantime I view him as the biggest threat of the newcomers to potentially steal votes from Helton as I’d assume more “traditional” voters are more likely to vote Ortiz than Helton if they haven’t added Helton to their ballot before.
What about Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira on the Hall of Fame ballot?
A-Rod’s the next biggest threat. Statistically he is undeniably a Hall of Famer, but he faces his own challenges as a PED user who used them after the big crackdown on steroids. We’ve seen how current voters have treated guys like Bonds and Clemens, whose steroid use is a little cloudier in terms of what was okay and what wasn’t. With Rodriguez, it was clear what was and wasn’t allowed when he took it. Will voters be more stringent with him than they are Bonds and Clemens? Or will they look past his PED use and focus more on how dominant his advanced stats are compared to everyone else around him? My gut tells me he starts slow, but ultimately he’s a threat to open spots that could be Helton’s.
The only other player I view as a potential threat is Mark Teixeira. This is only because he’s also a first baseman and doesn’t have the Coors Factor clouding certain voters’ judgement.
I don’t anticipate that Teixeira will make the Hall of Fame within his 10 years on the ballot, but I do expect that some voters will vote for him over Helton if they have a Coors bias. Teixeira’s numbers aren’t better than Helton’s by any means (50.6 bWAR vs 61.8 bWAR), but he’ll likely be on a few ballots where Helton is not. The impact from Ortiz and Rodriguez voters should be much larger.
While these three will have an impact on any progress for Helton this year, there are three other players whose presence on the ballot are going to have much larger of an impact this season.
What about the three players on the Hall of Fame ballot who could impact Todd Helton’s voting totals?
The Barry Bonds-Roger Clemens-Curt Schilling trio is now going into their final year on the ballot. We’re going to finally see if voters pushing these three to their final ballot year was just punishment for their PED use (Bonds/Clemens) and their controversial behavior (Schilling, and Bonds/Clemens to an extent). Bonds and Clemens each were on just over 61% of ballots last year. Schilling was on 71% of ballots.
I’d expect that, at the very least, Schilling gets in this year and I won’t be shocked if all three get in. The 10th year boost is real. Just ask The Denver Post’s Mark Kiszla about it (who adamantly said Larry Walker would never make the Hall of Fame and didn’t vote for Walker on any of his ballots until 2019, Walker’s 10th year and final year on the ballot).
The voters are going to have to ask themselves if one of the greatest hitters the game has ever seen, one of the greatest pitchers the game has ever seen and an incredibly good starting pitcher with three World Series championships (and a World Series MVP) are honestly not worthy of the Hall of Fame. My gut says this was just punishment and all three will now make it on enough ballots that they weren’t previously on and will get into the Hall of Fame this year.
With all that said, I’m not anticipating much improvement for Helton this year. For voters who hadn’t voted for Bonds, Clemens and Schilling in prior years, I see the potential for all three of these players, and Ortiz, to garner votes. That’s four players taking up spots that Helton could potentially take. In addition to just taking up spots, this could also open up the door for some voters to temporarily drop Helton from their ballot to make room for Clemens/Bonds/Schilling, especially if a voter is trying to get all three in.
In a perfect world, I’d love to see Helton eclipse the 50% mark. But, given the new additions and the controversial trio being on their final year, I don’t think he’ll break it this year. In 2022 he should see a much larger jump and be well on his way to getting elected into the Hall of Fame, but for this year as long has he stays around the 45%-50% mark then he’ll still be set up for progress in future years.