COMC Haul and HOF voting: Todd Helton

The 2019 Baseball Hall of Fame voting results will be announced next week (finally!) and a bunch of baseball bloggers have made a list of who would receive their vote. I posted my ballot in November (I'm going to look like an idiot for leaving off Roy Halladay) but today I wanted to focus on one player in particular: Todd Helton.

Helton is not the only Cooperstown candidate I saw play in person, but he is the only one who played minor league ball in my backyard. During COMC's most recent sale I spent just over $10 on three Todd Helton cards: the 1997-style Game Jersey above cost $1.30..

..while this 1998 Best insert (with Kerry Wood on the reverse) was $0.75. A copy of this 1997 Best auto sold in a previous COMC sale, so I made sure to grab the last available copy for $8.02 - a bit more than the other one sold for, but still a great price considering he has only a dozen autographed cards available on the site. This one was even more appealing to me because it's a New Haven Ravens card.

Plenty of ink has been spilled over the 'Coors Field effect' enhancing the home totals of sluggers like Helton, Larry Walker, and others. In prior years, BBWAA voters often left Walker off their ballot for this reason. This year, his totals have soared so far. Meanwhile, Helton currently sits at 20% on the BBHOF vote tracker - though that only counts public ballots.

This is preliminary of course, but there is no way that Helton (or Scott Rolen) should have only half as many votes as Fred McGriff or Omar Vizquel. 

A few months ago I had planned on writing a blog post comparing middle-tier Hall of Fame 1st Basemen with non HOFers like Helton, McGriff, Steve Garvey, and others..but the Coors Field effect complicates matters. Instead I'll compare his best season to that of his Rockies teammate and ballot mate Larry Walker, who played significantly fewer games in Denver (and fewer games overall.) 

Here's a side-by-side comparison of their best seasons - a reminder of the video game numbers that could be produced in the thin Rocky Mountain air:

	BA/OBP/SLG	HR	RBI	runs	OPS+	MVP finish
Walker 1997	.366/.452/.720	49	130	143	178	1st
Helton 2000	.372/.463/.698	42	147	138	163	5th

In almost any other year, Helton's batting line alone would have earned him an MVP award; he led the NL in WAR that season (finishing ahead of PED poppers Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa, and actual 2000 MVP Jeff Kent). Supporters of Fred McGriff insist that he has been 'punished' for playing clean in a dirty era. is it possible that a similar bias is hurting the Rockies' slugger?

A back injury robbed Helton of his power (similar to Don Mattingly) but the timing of his decline dovetails with the beginning of PED testing - which led at least one reporter to publicly accuse him of steroid use. That appears to be an outlier, as Helton strongly denied it at the time, and I haven't heard any other accusations against him since. 

Cooperstown Cred wrote an excellent piece on Helton's HOF case. I recommended reading it, but here's the gist:

Using WAR (Wins Above Replacement), Helton’s career total of 61.2 is 18th best for all first basemen in history. The only first sackers with higher are PED linked (Rafael Palmerio, Mark McGwire) or still active (Pujols & Cabrera). Using Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system, he’s ranked 16th best, ahead of 10 Cooperstown-enshrined first basemen.

I think they may have counted the Hall of Fame average as a player, because when I look at the list, Helton is 17th in 1st Baseman WAR and 15th in JAWS. Regardless, this basically means he's about the 16th-greatest player ever at his position. All things considered, is this enough to eventually enshrine the Rockies' greatest player? 


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Sports Card Tour 2018 - Denver

Good Friday to you! The Collector's Sports Card Tour has reached a Rocky Mountain high. Today we're in Denver.

Denver has four pro sports teams - the Rockies, the Broncos, the Nuggets, and the Avalanche.

The Broncos have hoisted the Vince Lombardi trophy three times. The Avalanche have won the Stanley Cup twice. The Rockies were champions of the National League in 2007, when they were swept by the Red Sox in the World Series. The Nuggets are 0-3 in conference finals as an NBA franchise; they reached the ABA finals in 1976.


John Elway is the Broncos' Vice President/General Manager and the city's greatest athlete. When Elway led Denver to Super Bowl XXXII I invited all my friends over to watch the game. They were all neutral fans so they wanted to see Elway finally win one. I was a huge Packer backer, and after the game ended I was so disappointed that they lost (and upset that my friends were all celebrating) I stormed off to my room. Not sure what hurt more at the time, but it annoys the hell out of me that poor old John Elway has three rings and Brett Favre only has one.

I never liked Elway, even before that Super Bowl, but I have to admit he's got some cool cards. Playoff X's and O's are one of my favorite insert sets of the 1990's. I bought a lot of Prime boxes from K-Mart to chase those.

Is it me, or does it seem like the Broncos could just plug in anyone at running back and watch him gain 1,000 yards? I don't think it's me. Fourteen different Broncos backs have had 1,000-yard rushing seasons. I have ten of them in my collection. 

Terrell Davis wasn't any old back; he rushed for over 2,000 yards in his MVP season of 1998 and won two Super Bowl rings. Injuries limited "TD" to just four full seasons, nevertheless he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame last year.

Some strong safeties here. Brian Dawkins is part of this year's Hall of Fame class. Steve Atwater and John Lynch could soon follow him to Canton.

The rest of my Broncos hits. Like Elway, Peyton Manning finished his incredible career on top. I didn't like Shannon Sharpe as much as his brother Sterling, but his trash talk was legendary.

Equally as upsetting to me as Elway's Super Bowl win was Ray Bourque finally raising the Stanley Cup with the Avalanche. The Devils had a 3-2 lead in the 2001 Final, but destiny was not on their side. My wife and in-laws still grumble about that series; I used to tell my father-in-law that if Bourque hadn't won that year he'd still be playing.

It also gave Patrick Roy four Stanley Cup rings and a head-to-head victory over Martin Brodeur, who "only" has three Cups. I liked Roy a lot more when he was in Montreal.

Let's get the rest of the inserts out of the way so that I can show you my all-time favorite Av...

Chris Drury won a Little League World Series, an NCAA hockey championship, and a Stanley Cup. My family and I pulled both the John-Michael Liles base auto and gold parallel #d/10 out of 2005-06 Be A Player. Of all the one-auto-per-pack BAP issues, this was my favorite. Black Diamond Game Gear was the first set I saw that contained pieces of goalie pads.

Nathan MacKinnon is a top contender for the Hart Trophy as league MVP. If history is any indication, he'll beat my guy (Taylor Hall) and win. I'm really starting to dislike Denver...

...then again they've got some solid Connecticut connections, besides Chris Drury.

Here's a small sampling of my Peter Worrell super collection. Pete was a fan favorite in New Haven, when he played two years with the AHL's Beast. After his one season with the Avs, the NHL phased out fourth-line enforcers and Worrell's career was essentially over. Because he's not a big star and only has about 130 NHL cards I surmised that I'd have a much better chance of completing his card run than any of my other favorites like Favre or Brodeur.

The Colorado Rockies had a minor-league affiliate in New Haven for over a decade, starting in 1994. A good chunk of my early Rockies cards are former Ravens, such as slugger Derrick Gibson.

Gibson ended his career in pro ball with another New Haven franchise, the independent (and short-lived) Cutters. I recently told Rockies fan Rosenort of the blog Condition Sensitive that I had more cards of Gibson than Nolan Arenado. Didn't know just how true that was until now...

For the record, it's 11-2 Gibson - and that's after I bought the 2018 Topps Arenado at the card show.

You may have heard of this former Raven..

Todd Helton was Colorado's first home-grown superstar, and the first Rockie to have his number retired by the team. I absolutely would have wanted him to with the 2007 World Series - if his Rox weren't facing my Sox. He'll be on next year's Hall of Fame ballot; I wonder if he'll fare better than Larry Walker.

I had a Helton bat relic but I traded it to another Rockies blogger, Adam K. of Infield Fly Rule. Thus, the Tulo patch is the only thing resembling a "hit" in my Rox collection. I'm pessimistic about Walker's HOF chances, though some day the Hall voters will have to get over themselves and enshrine a Rockie. 

Actually, there is one former Rockies player in the Hall of Fame...

the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Meanwhile the Denver Nuggets have had a handful of HOFers, including Dikembe Mutombo.

I'll never forget that 1994 first-round series when the 8th-seeded Nuggets shocked the top-seeded Sonics. 

I think of Carmelo Anthony more as a Knick than a Nugget, but he had some sensational seasons in the Mile High city. I honestly didn't know Melo led the Nuggets to a Conference finals appearance in 2009. For a guy with an NCAA championship and three Olympic gold medals, I still get this impression that most basketball people don't think he's a winner.

Alex English was nearing the end of his fantastic career when I started collecting basketball cards. I don't think I ever saw him play, but his scoring stats were mind-boggling to me as a ten year-old. And that colorful cityscape jersey was fantastic. 

Here's another look at it because it is awesome and this post isn't long enough:

The rest of my notable Nuggets:

I almost bought an Immaculate Kenneth Faried card on COMC but cheaped out for some dumb reason. The McDyess Black Diamond is my favorite here. Don't Google Evan Fournier. He said not to ...so I didn't.

Rockies card I'd like to own: A Todd Helton auto, or more affordably a 2002 Topps Pristine refractor.
Broncos card I'd like to own: Ten year-old me really wants a Jake Butt card. Huh huh.  
Nuggets card I'd like to own: An early 90's logo card. Or an Allen Iverson card. Or that Immaculate Faried I should have bought for 85 cents when I had the chance.
Avalanche card I'd like to own: Believe it or not, I'm missing the pewter Peter Worrell autograph parallel to complete the Auto-facts rainbow. It's #d to 10 and I doubt I'll ever find one.


Favorite Rockies player: Nolan Arenado or Carlos Gonzalez
Favorite Broncos player: Von Miller
Favorite Nuggets player: Don't have one yet. I hadn't even heard of Gary Harris until about a month ago.
Favorite Avalanche player: It might be MacKinnon. But that doesn't mean I want him to win the MVP.

Next tour stop: Detroit


Thanks for reading this very long post. Have a great weekend!


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