If Peyton Manning was Your Backup and You Still Chose Baseball, You’re Probably a Hall of Famer: The Case for Todd Helton

Before Todd Helton and I mixed it up about baseball, I just had to ask – in hindsight, what it is like having had Peyton Manning, now a Hall of Famer and one of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time as his backup. To Todd’s credit, he was completely fair.

“Well, I mean, he was young – he was a freshman, I was a junior, I had some time on him, and honestly, I knew that I was just keeping the seat warm until he got ready, and he got ready pretty quickly. I actually ended up getting hurt, but not hurt badly – I tweaked my MCL, it was a blessing in disguise. Probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I got out of the SEC without ruining my body, and then that junior year baseball season, I was completely healthy and ready to go.”

I wondered if Helton thought he could have made it as an NFL quarterback. He responded with an emphatic “no.” Then he went on to say, “honestly, I don’t think I had an NFL arm.”

I had to take a shot, telling him, “well, we knew that, you were a first basemen.” Helton laughed, “hey, I played a little outfield too now!”

I will admit, I am just as guilty as most, and when Todd Helton beat out Moises Alou for the batting title in 2000, an 11-year, know-it-all me cried out “COORS!” echoing what I had heard on Baseball Tonight. But today, I am able to view the game through a different lens, and the fact of the matter is that not all is what it seems when it comes to the Coors Effect, and when gawking at the inverse relationship between home and road splits – we must also consider the Hangover Effect.

My co-author, Kevin, and I explain the Hangover Effect in depth in our book, Incredible Baseball Stats, Volume II, but taking a 5,200-foot overview as to what exactly it is, simply, the theory that while players indeed see a boost in their numbers at Coors Field, their numbers fall off on the road exponentially, a far more dramatic decline than a player who plays his home games in, say, Baltimore.

Also, to consider: beyond a baseball’s ability to carry at high altitude, a pitcher’s repertoire also changes, as he will generally lose his ability to effectively throw breaking pitchers when visiting Coors Field, thus the “home field advantage.” Then, when the Rockies travel, they could potentially see the very same pitcher, throwing and entirely different sequence of pitches, pitches that they are not seeing in half of their games; moreover, anyone who has ever traveled from high altitude back to sea-level can tell you, the exhaustion and sometimes even sickness you experience is real – road disadvantage.

I asked Todd about the Coors Effect and the Hangover Effect, and he responded in a similar vain as Larry Walker, “I mean, is playing at Coors viewed a little bit too harshly on the player? Maybe, but that isn’t really for me to decide, that is more for guys like you to decide – all I can do is go out and play the best that I can, whether that was at home or on the road, so that is what I aimed to do.”

Helton then took a different approach than I’ve heard from other ballplayers, “You know, one thing that might be overlooked is how much harder it is to play at altitude – at least for me, it was a lot tougher to get loose, it was a lot tougher to go out and play every day, and then going back to sea-level, and after a couple days of adjusting, your body feels ten times better.”

Don’t just take my word… or Todd Helton’s… or Larry Walker’s… on the matter. The numbers all but prove it.

Since the Rockies first season in 1993, they rank first in batting average, first in on-base percentage, and first in slugging percentage at home, batting .304/.368/.500. But, for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction, and the Rockies have batted .241/.305/.380 on the road during that same span – last, last, last!

At home, their .868 OPS is 49-points better than the second place Red Sox (.819). On the road, their .685 OPS is 17-points lower than the 29th best team, the Pirates (.702).

Overall, their OPS is 14.2 percent better than league average at home and 5.2 percent worse than league average on the road. So perhaps Newton was a bit off, but this definitely represents a strong inverse correlation. In the end, I contend that the boost players see in their overall numbers when playing their home games at Coors field is probably not much more – when combing with their road numbers – than playing in the hitter friend confines of, say, Yankees Stadium – especially with those baseballs – because those players do not have to manage The Hangover Effect.

Please note: I am well aware of the humidor’s implementation in 2002; however, the first, first, first, last, last, last phenomenon largely holds true for any decent sized period in Rockies franchise history. As I said when I published the Walker piece, I am working on a far deeper analysis, and I theorize that playing on the Rockies does not, in general, afford a given player’s numbers, overall, the best over bump and that other teams may offer a better overall offensive environment. Hot take…

I did ask Todd about the humidor and the fact that its use in Colorado was so well known, but no one talked about the fact that it was also used in Arizona – and now all 30 stadiums, though I personally have my doubts about Yankee Stadium, as you all well know. I asked him if the hitting situation was similar in Arizona or just completely different than Colorado.

“It’s not completely different, certainly not the same, but it was a good place to hit – roof open, roof closed, it didn’t matter, it was a good place to hit. I always enjoyed hitting there.”

When a player leaves the Rockies, especially an elite player, we are able to note that often times their splits normalize. The likes of DJ LeMahieu and Nolan Arenado are great examples of players who are better than “just their road splits,” both of whom had career years after leaving Colorado.

Last season, Larry Walker saw his plaque donned forever in Cooperstown’s hallowed halls, but even he had only played 30.0 percent of his career games in Colorado. Todd Helton, on the other hand, played 50.8 percent of his career games at Coors Field, and BBWAA seems to be holding that against him.

Helton and I addressed his Hall of Fame teammate and his success with other teams, and whether or not he thinks that he would have had similar success had he had the opportunity to play elsewhere – “it is hard to play baseball in hindsight, but I do think that I would have had similar success, and there are bunch of ballparks that I really enjoyed playing at, good hitter’s parks that you can really do some damage in.”

Coincidentally, Helton saw his most success on the road in Montreal, where he batted .357/.463/.663 with nine home runs to just nine strikeouts in 28 games – his 1.126 OPS at Olympic Stadium bests even his 1.048 OPS at Coors Field. He also bested his Coors slash-line at Minute Maid Park, Veterans Stadium, and Three Rivers Stadium – as well as Tropicana Field, but with only three games.

In doing so many of these Hall of Fame write-ups, I have learned that it is unwise to ask a ballplayer if he would vote for himself. In fact, I have a rule with the Ballplayer Ballot stating that they are not permitted to do so (though I do not penalize them for not being able to do so). But I did want to ask him about the ballot. I avoided asking questions about players, many of whom I believe belong in the Hall of Fame, with any stigma attached to their names. I instead honed in on two, both of whom I have done Hall of Fame articles in the past: Scott Rolen and Andruw Jones.

“I would vote for those two guys, yup.”

Both of whom would also vote for Helton.

As would Larry Walker, who Helton called “the best athlete I’ve ever played with – football or baseball. If you put him on a football field, he could have played multiple positions – tight end, linebacker. He was a big ‘ole boy… and yet, he is probably the best baserunner I’ve ever seen as well.”

I do not think where Helton or Walker played their home games should even be a matter of consideration. In addition to the aforementioned points about the Hangover Effect, Helton is not the first person in history, nor will he be the first Hall of Famer, to see these, somewhat, lopsided splits.

Klein’s home field advantage?

He was a left-handed batter who played 61.0 percent of his career home games at the Baker Bowl, which measured just 280-feet to right field and 300-feet in the power alley in right-center. In fact, he batted .395/.448/.705 at the Baker Bowl and .277/.339/.451 everywhere else.

One thing you might note as you read through this piece, I did not, as I typically do, cite many adjusted statistics, and that reason is because of the environmental factor. Advanced statistics such as WAR, OPS+, etc. all use a ballpark factor, as they should; however, they fail to acknowledge the Hangover Effect, and for that reason, I do believe that Todd Helton’s 61.8 WAR and 133 OPS+, for example, should be quite a bit higher. More to come on this down the road…

If I have not sold you on the Hangover Effect or at least the fact that Todd Helton is not the only player in baseball, throughout history or even now, to have benefited from a “homefield advantage” then let’s take a look at some of his other numbers…

Todd Helton reached base safely 2,796 times during the 2000s, leaving…

Bobby Abreu – 2,785
Alex Rodriguez – 2,715
Derek Jeter – 2,659
Albert Pujols – 2,597
Lance Berkman – 2,582
Ichiro Suzuki – 2,486
Brian Giles – 2,467
Manny Ramirez – 2,459
Chipper Jones – 2,433

On this, Helton was shocked – “that is a pretty damn good list of names. I mean Ichiro alone. How many hits did he have?”

Helton batted .396/.481/.731 with 110 extra-base hits and 148 RBI over a 162-game span from Aug. 28, 1999 to Aug. 29, 2000 – the best 162-game stretch of his career.

Todd Helton faced the Hall of Fame trio of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz a combined 123 times – batting .383/.447/.523 against them. Overall, he had 219 plate appearances against pitchers currently in the National Baseball Hall of Fame – batting .369/.425/.503.

Helton’s response to his slash-line was priceless – “Oh shit… here is another one I will be telling my wife about. I had no idea.”

Also worth noting, he hit .333/.390/.722 in 59 plate appearances against Curt Schilling, who might be in the Hall of Fame himself, if not for… reasons.

“I would argue Todd Helton was one of the best first basemen – offensively and defensively – in the last 50 years… he also hit like 1.199 off me.”
                                                             – Curt Schilling

Todd Helton had 105 extra-base hits in 2001, trailing only Babe Ruth (119, 1921), Lou Gehrig (117, 1927), Chuck Klein (107, 1930), and Barry Bonds (107, 2001) for the all-time single season lead… he also had 103 extra-base hits in 2000, trailing only those four names and himself.

In 2000, Todd Helton had 216 hits, 103 extra-base hits, and 103 bases on balls, making him the first player with at least 200 hits, 100 extra-base hits, and 100 bases on balls in a season since Hank Greenberg in 1937. The only others to have done so are Jimmie Foxx (1932), Lou Gehrig (1927, 1930), and Babe Ruth (1921).

Todd Helton is the only player in history with consecutive 100 extra-base hit seasons.

The Rockies have scored 23,508 runs in franchise history, Todd Helton produced 10.4 percent of them. They have a franchise batting average of .272, without Helton, that drops nearly 2.5 points.

Todd Helton batted .404/.457/670 with 20 home runs and 391 RBI with a runner on third and less than two outs. He reached base safely, got a hit, or hit a sacrifice fly in 61.5 percent of his career plate appearances with a man on third and less than two outs. By comparison, Albert Pujols finished his career at 59.4 percent.

All of these great stats on Helton, many of which he was hearing for the first time, but he actually told me my new favorite Todd Helton factoid when we were discussing Greg Maddux’s efficiency – “I pitched in college, I once threw a 72-pitch complete game shutout.”

The very last thing we talked about, and Todd is a straight shooter, so I asked him bluntly, “do you give a shit about the Hall of Fame?”

“Yes, I do want to be in, but maybe not for the reasons you might think – you know, my Dad has passed, and I just cannot fathom how excited he would be, and how proud he would be. It would be for him. That is how it means something to me.”

Talking baseball with Todd Helton was a great honor, and I hope I am doing the future Hall of Famer justice in publishing this piece, and I hope that this is the last time that I ever have to call him a future Hall of Famer.