Hall of Fame Poll: Todd Helton

I’m going to skip a few.

Matt Cain played 13 seasons in the MLB, all for the Giants. He was a reasonable pitcher. He pitched in 342 games, making 331, with a 104-118 record and a 3.68 ERA.

He made 3 All-Star games and got Cy Young votes 3 times, finishing 6th, 8th and 12th. He had a nice streak of six seasons with 200+ innings. He had bWAR numbers ranging from 3.1 to 6.1 in those years. But his career ended with a string of 4 seasons with negative bWARs.

Cain was on World Series winning teams twice and had a 4-2 record, with a 2.10 ERA in 8 playoff games.

Matt had a 29.3 career bWAR. He pitched a perfect game on June 13, 2012.

R.A. Dickey played 15 seasons in the MLB for the Rangers, Mariners, Twins, Mets, Blue Jays, and Braves. He pitched in 400 games, making 300 starts (very neat numbers), had a 120-118 record and a 4.04 ERA.

He won a Cy Young, had a Gold Glove and finished 14th in MVP voting once. Dickey had a 5-year streak of 200+ innings.

R.A. pitched in the playoffs twice, making one good start, and one terrible start, both for the Jays.

He is an interesting guy, but I don’t think many people would consider him a Hall of Famer.

Jacoby Ellsbury played 11 seasons in the MLB, 7 for the Red Sox and 4 for the Yankees. He played a total of 1235 games, hitting .284/.342/.417 with 104 home runs and 343 stolen bases.

He got MVP votes in two seasons, finished second in 2011, made one All-Star team, had one Gold Glove and one Silver Slugger.

Jacoby had a career 31.2 bWAR. His best season was an 8.3 (in 2011).

He played on six teams that made the playoffs, and hit .280/.346/.385 with 11 steals in 45 games.

Andre Ethier played 12 seasons in the majors, all for the Dodgers. He played 1455 games, hit .285/.359/.463 with 162 home runs.

He made 2 All-Star teams, won a Silver Slugger and a Gold Glove, and got MVP votes once, finishing 6th in 2009.

He had a 24.5 Career bWAR. His best season, by bWAR was a 3.5 in 2012.

Andre was on 8 teams that made the playoffs, hitting .246/.345/.429 in 51 games.

I doubt there were many seasons when you would have picked Ethier as the best player on his team, so I’m confident no one would vote him into the Hall.

J.J. Hardy played 13 seasons in the MLB, for the Brewers, Twins, and Orioles.

In 1561 games, he hit .256/.305/.408 with 188 home runs. He made two All-Star teams, won three Gold Gloves and had one Silver Slugger.

He had a 28.1 career bWAR. His best season was a 4.8 bWAR.

His teams made the Playoffs five times. He hit .225/.279/.325 with 1 home run. No he doesn’t belong in the Hall.

So we come to Todd Helton.

It is Helton’s sixth time on the ballot. He got 52.0% of the vote last year. So he’s moved up from 16.5% to 29.2% to 44.9% and now 52.0.

The good news for Todd is that he’s moving in the right direction and has five more chances. So he’s likely to get there.

Todd was one of those rare players who played their entire career with one team. Seventeen seasons, all with the Colorado Rockies.

Helton hit .316/.414/.539, with 2519 hits (98th in MLB history), including 369 home runs (82th in MLB history) in 2247 games. His career bWAR is 61.2.

He hit .315/.380/.430 in 152 games and finished 2nd in Rookie of the Year voting in his rookie season.

Two years later, he hit .372/.463/.698 with a league-leading 216 hits, 59 doubles (also league-leading), 42 home runs, and 147 RBIs (league-leading). He finished 5th in MVP voting.

Todd would make five All-Star teams, win three Gold Gloves, four Silver Sluggers, and get MVP votes six times.

He had a streak of five straight seasons with OPS over 1.000.

Like many guys in the Hall of Fame, he had a very high peak and then continued his career-long enough to build great career numbers.

I think the Writers discount his numbers because he played in Denver all his career. Larry Walker finally made it. Helton likely will too.

The NL had some excellent first basemen in his era. He would rank behind Albert Pujols and Jeff Bagwell, but not too far behind.