FanPost

Todd Helton: Fighting the Media Bias

So, here goes my first FanPost, hopefully I have done this well enough to meet the requirements ;-)

Joe Posnanski wrote an article glorifying Chipper Jones.
Why do I care? Because it says Chipper is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. It then goes on to glorify Chipper's achievement of doing better than .300/.400/.500 in playing over 2000 games. Only 14 players in MLB history have done that, most of them in the Hall. Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Stan Musial, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Tris Speaker, Mel Ott, and Harry Heilmann. These 10 are in the HoF. Also listed are Frank Thomas, Manny Ramirez, and Edgar Martinez, but who knows how they'll be judged for the HoF. Anyway, fair enough, let's consider Chipper a HoFer.

Anyway, the real reason for this? Todd Helton. Todd and Chipper have many parallels. They are consistently great players. They have long careers with one team. They've battled for batting titles, silver sluggers, and have been voted to 5 (Todd) and 6 (Chipper) all-star games.
Chipper's career line: .308/.407/.542 in 16 seasons.
Todd's career line: .328/.427/.566 in 13 seasons.
However, Todd is just over 1800 games played, he needs 200 more to join the previously mentioned list.

Must he pass 2000 games to become the 15th player on that list, before he starts getting HoF respect? Assuming he does as bad as his worst season for 200 more games (I took his injury plagued 2008 season stats for this). We end up adding 200 games, 867 PAs, 718 ABs, 190 hits, 38 doubles, 17 homers, 70 RBI, 146 walks, and 120 Ks. Todd's line ends up .321/.423/.566 (SLG% seems weird, the numbers for total bases don't add up...)

So even if Todd Helton falls apart these next 2 seasons, his numbers still dwarf Chipper's numbers.

Is this more LOLCORZ bias?

Let's look at some splits, remembering that the humidor era began in 2002.

Chipper's Home splits: .317/.416/.564

Chipper's Away splits: .299/.397/.520

Todd's Home splits: .361/.458/.642

Todd's Away splits: .294/.395/.489

 

Todd's away splits are still somewhat comparable to Chipper's, but he absolutely blows him out of the water at home. LOLCORZ! However, Todd has spent 8 years in "Humidor Coors", and only 5 before. In fact, every year of Todd's career, he has hit over .330 at Coors (except 2008), and over .360 6 times. 4 times he's hit over .300 on the road (5 if he manages .416 in LA this weekend). Not to mention he has been in the .280 range on the road many times.

Chipper's year-to-year stats are much harder to trend. He has seasons around .310 home, .290 away, but others where he hits better on the road by 30-40 points. One season where he nearly hit .400 at home. It really doesn't average out too well.

The most telling thing is this. Todd only has 1 season below .300, and that was his injury shortened 2008. Chipper has dropped below .300 5 times in his career (only 1 appears to be injury related). Also, Todd has gold gloves, Chipper has none! Chipper does have a WS ring, and a MVP award. Maybe we can fix that WS ring this year!


Is the only reason Chipper is glorified because he played on the Braves who made the playoffs every year during the 90s?

I think this definitely has something to do with it. His teams were successful, therefore he got more exposure, so the media likes him more. TBS exposed the Braves to a large portion of the country, while we barely see the Rox on nationally televised games. Chipper played on the team of the 90s while Todd toiled away in the Rockies forgettable early 2000s era.

Basically, they're both good players, but we still have to fight the media and Coors field biases that exist.

Bleh, just had to rant about how ridiculous the disparity is. These last couple seasons are at least starting to legitimize Coors Field and the Rockies, and change perceptions.  Hopefully it gets fully corrected by the time Todd retires and we start thinking about getting him into the Hall!

Eat. Drink. Be Merry. But the above FanPost does not necessarily reflect the attitudes, opinions, or views of Purple Row's staff (unless, of course, it's written by the staff [and even then, it still might not]).