Todd Helton

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Todd Helton

2021 Hall of Fame Ballot Series: Todd Helton

Five facts about Todd Helton:

Helton attended the University of Tennessee where he played both football and baseball. As a football player, he was the Volunteers' last starting quarterback before Peyton Manning. As a baseball player, Helton won the Dick Howser Trophy as the National Collegiate Baseball Player of the Year in 1995 (his junior season).

Todd Helton made five All-Star teams, consecutively from 2000 - 2004. He won four Silver Sluggers and three Gold Gloves and received MVP votes six times.

Helton's highest finish in MVP voting was in 2000 when he finished fifth. That season, Helton batted .372/.463/.698 with 216 hits, 405 total bases, 59 doubles, and 147 RBI. All of those figures led the National League. He also hit 42 home runs and scored 138 runs

From 1999 through 2007, Todd Helton hit at least 39 doubles nine consecutive times. Only one player has had more seasons with 39 or more doubles in his career, Tris Speaker, who did so 10 times but never more than four consecutive seasons. Helton hit 416 doubles over these nine seasons

Helton led NL first basemen in putouts three times, in assists four times, in double plays six times, and in fielding percentage six times. For his career, he ranks second in career assists by a first baseman, third in career double plays by a first baseman, fifth in career games at first base, eighth in career fielding percentage, and 13th in career putouts by a first baseman.

The first two tables below present Todd Helton's career as measured by Player won-lost records, in and out of context.

Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWORL	pWOPA

Basic Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1997	COL	23	35	2.2	2.7	-0.4	-0.6
1998	COL	24	152	15.4	14.5	0.7	-0.8
1999	COL	25	159	17.0	14.8	2.2	0.6
2000	COL	26	160	22.4	14.5	7.9	6.1
2001	COL	27	159	20.4	14.9	5.4	3.7
2002	COL	28	156	19.0	14.9	4.1	2.4
2003	COL	29	160	19.9	14.7	5.3	3.6
2004	COL	30	154	17.1	13.7	3.6	2.0
2005	COL	31	144	15.6	14.0	1.6	0.2
2006	COL	32	145	15.7	14.7	0.8	-0.7
2007	COL	33	154	18.0	14.3	3.7	2.2
2008	COL	34	83	8.2	8.5	-0.3	-1.1
2009	COL	35	151	16.1	13.8	2.2	0.7
2010	COL	36	118	10.1	9.8	0.1	-0.8
2011	COL	37	124	12.8	11.5	1.2	0.1
2012	COL	38	69	6.3	6.4	-0.1	-0.7
2013	COL	39	124	10.7	10.9	-0.2	-1.3
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,247	247.1	208.7	37.8	15.6
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			15	1.4	1.6	-0.2	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,262	248.5	210.3	37.6	15.3

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1997	COL	23	35	2.4	2.5	0.1	-0.2
1998	COL	24	152	16.0	14.0	1.8	0.3
1999	COL	25	159	16.9	14.9	2.1	0.5
2000	COL	26	160	22.2	14.8	7.3	5.5
2001	COL	27	159	21.7	13.6	8.2	6.4
2002	COL	28	156	19.7	14.3	5.4	3.7
2003	COL	29	160	20.1	14.5	5.7	4.0
2004	COL	30	154	18.2	12.7	5.7	4.2
2005	COL	31	144	16.7	12.8	3.9	2.5
2006	COL	32	145	15.9	14.5	1.3	-0.2
2007	COL	33	154	18.1	14.3	3.9	2.3
2008	COL	34	83	8.7	8.1	0.6	-0.2
2009	COL	35	151	16.3	13.6	2.5	1.1
2010	COL	36	118	9.7	10.2	-0.7	-1.6
2011	COL	37	124	13.2	11.0	2.2	1.0
2012	COL	38	69	6.2	6.5	-0.3	-0.9
2013	COL	39	124	11.0	10.6	0.5	-0.6
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,247	253.0	202.8	50.0	27.9
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			15	1.6	1.4	0.1	-0.0
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,262	254.6	204.2	50.2	27.9

This is Todd Helton's third year on the Hall-of-Fame ballot. I have written articles about the Hall-of-Fame candidates every year in which Todd Helton has been on the BBWAA ballot. Here is what I wrote about him last year.

Vote Prediction

Todd Helton debuted in 2019 with 16.5% of the vote (70 of 425 ballots). His support grew to 29.2% last year (116 of 397). I think it is too early to say whether Helton will be elected to the Hall of Fame or not but he certainly seems to have positive momentum and, given the lack of any obvious first-year Hall-of-Famers, could see a big increase this year. If he matches last year's increase of 12.7% that would put him at 39.9%. Maybe a little more than that: let's guess 41.0% - at which point I would say that he would probably be on his way to eventually being elected by the BBWAA.

Player Won-Lost Records and Todd Helton

Last year, Larry Walker became the first player who ever played for the Colorado Rockies to be elected to the Hall of Fame. Walker had arguably his best seasons - and won his only MVP award - as a Rockie, but he only played parts of 10 seasons with the Rockies, starting and ending his career elsewhere. In contrast, Todd Helton spent his entire career with the Rockies.

When evaluating who the best player was in a franchise's history, I tend to think it makes sense to only look at what a player did while playing for that franchise. By that measure, per Baseball Player won-lost records, Todd Helton has an excellent argument for being the best player in Colorado Rockies history.

	Player	pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
1	Todd Helton	247.1	208.7	15.6	37.8
2	Troy Tulowitzki	142.0	125.6	20.0	32.8
3	Larry Walker	157.6	130.2	18.0	32.3
4	Nolan Arenado	136.3	114.8	17.1	29.2
5	Carlos Gonzalez	154.3	142.8	3.6	17.9
6	Vinny Castilla	125.2	116.8	5.7	17.6
7	Trevor Story	71.9	61.7	10.8	17.3
8	Ubaldo Jimenez	56.8	53.0	7.8	14.8
9	Brian Fuentes	32.1	21.6	9.6	14.7
10	Aaron Cook	75.3	78.4	2.5	12.3

Article last updated: November 24, 2020

2021 Hall of Fame Ballot Series

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