Over 17 seasons within the Main Leagues, Todd Helton performed 2,247 video games for the Rockies — and 0 for all the different 29 franchises. He’s the franchise chief in video games, hits, runs, residence runs and RBIs.
Helton additionally established requirements in additional subjective methods. That’s a part of the rationale his candidacy has gained momentum forward of Tuesday’s unveiling of the 2024 Baseball Writers’ Affiliation of America Corridor of Fame election outcomes, stay on MLB Community at 6 p.m. ET.
Helton was a five-time All-Star by the point Troy Tulowitzki made his MLB debut in August 2006. One 12 months later, Tulowitzki helped be certain that the Rockies reached the World Collection for the primary — and nonetheless solely — time of their historical past.
“That season for me — as a younger participant — I used to be actually taking part in for Todd and enthusiastic about how badly I needed him to expertise a World Collection,” Tulowitzki stated in a current phone interview. “At that time, he’d already been taking part in for therefore lengthy. I needed him to be rewarded for the whole lot he’d executed for the group. I revered him a lot for what he did each day.”
Helton’s signature second of the storybook 2007 season arrived on Sept. 18. The Rockies awakened that morning going through a five-game deficit for the Nationwide League Wild Card, with solely two weeks left within the common season.
However a doubleheader sweep of the Dodgers remodeled the group’s momentum, punctuated by Helton’s walk-off residence run in opposition to Takashi Saito. The Rockies received 14 of their last 15 video games, together with an exciting victory over the San Diego Padres within the Wild Card tiebreaker. Helton posted a 1.098 OPS with 4 residence runs over that span.
“We knew how necessary a sport that was, and he will get the massive hit,” Tulowitzki recalled. “Rapidly, we’re on a roll, and he’s main us, on and off the sector. I keep in mind considering, ‘That is going to be particular.’ Boston was slightly deeper and extra skilled [in the World Series], however that total run wouldn’t have been potential with out Todd.”
Tulowitzki, who turns 40 this 12 months, retired after showing in 5 video games with the Yankees in 2019. He’s now the director of participant growth for the College of Texas baseball program — a task that offers him new appreciation for Helton’s affect.
“As a younger participant, I advised myself that if I used to be ever in the identical spot as Todd, I might deal with the youthful guys the way in which he handled me,” stated Tulowitzki, a five-time All-Star. “I labored laborious to earn his approval. That’s the stuff he wouldn’t know — how a lot he meant to our group, how necessary his vitality was.”
Tulowitzki stated he realized totally different points of the sport from Helton and Matt Holliday, who additionally seems on this 12 months’s Corridor of Fame poll. Holliday would have in-depth conversations with Tulowitzki about hitting or baseball usually. Helton typically led by instance, particularly as he neared his retirement after the 2013 season.
Helton was restricted to 69 video games in 2012 attributable to a proper hip labrum tear that required season-ending surgical procedure.
“Towards the again finish of his profession, I might inform there was numerous stuff hurting him, but when he was adequate to play, he was going to be within the lineup,” Tulowitzki stated. “I simply watched him and stated, ‘This man completely doesn’t give in to the truth that his again is hurting him.’ He might look dangerous within the cage that day, then exit and throw two or three hits on the market. He might put collectively a 10-pitch at-bat. It’s his mentality that at all times stood out to me.”
To reply the perpetual query: Sure, Tulowitzki sees Helton as a deserving Corridor of Famer regardless of the advantages of hitting at Coors Subject.
In any case, as MLB Community researcher Craig Nordquist has noticed, Helton’s .855 OPS on the highway is best than Carl Yastrzemski’s general profession OPS.
“If we went on the highway to San Francisco after 10 days at residence, you’d say, ‘Wow, I haven’t seen a slider chunk like this in a very long time,’” Tulowitzki stated. “You needed to regulate. There was positively an artwork to it. The longer you performed there, the higher you’d get on the highway.
“For me, being a participant, I have a look at [a Hall of Famer] as, ‘Was he a totally totally different participant?’ And [Todd] was totally different. He was the very best hitter on the group. He might work an at-bat like I’d by no means seen. And he was a Gold Glover at first base.”
