Todd Helton Is Probably A Cheater

During the Yanks game tonight, Russo and I were talking about how awful Nomar was while calling the game. I then got into how I believed he used steroids, or at least form of them. Although I really liked Nomar as a player and thought he was a great guy, I felt that he definitely juiced. After that, a little liquid confidence (7 innings worth) encouraged me to bring back an old belief to hear Russo’s reaction. Ready? I believe if that list of the 200 or so names on steroids were to be released, Todd Helton would most certainly be on that list.

Outside of Griffey, Ripken, Jeter, and Rivera, there isn’t a person that would shock me as far as steroid use is concerned. I know what you may think…Leary, you’re nuts, Helton is just a great player and has always been the same.

Well, if you look at his first three years stat wise he really improves by a little each season.

• ’97:   93 at-bats,  .280  5 hr  11 rbi
• ’98:   530 at bats,  .315  25 hr  97 rbi
• ’99:   578 at bats,   .320  35 hr 113 rbi

Obviously Helton developed into a top tier major league player, and let’s make one thing clear…I really love the guy as a player, but the next couple of seasons compared to what he did after just jump off the page.

• ’00:  580 at-bats,  .372  42 hr  147 rbi
• ’01:  587 at-bats,   .336  49 hr  146 rbi

After these two years Helton never got over 33 home runs or drove in more than 117, and let’s not blame it on the fact that his team wasn’t too great. Fact is the guy hit in the meat of the order and had plenty of chances to drive in runs and hit bombs at Coors field. To extend on this, Helton after 2004 has never hit over 20 home runs.

Honestly, the guy is one of those rare cases where he would be a hall of famer without using any type of performance enhancer. Maybe he is clean, and if so then we seriously need to give him a ton more credit for what he as accomplished in his career. If you were to defend him, then you could say that he was a hell of a lot more consistent with his numbers than other players in the era. Than despite hitting 49 home runs in 2001 he struck out 104 times, which is by far the most of his career. How he has always been a great doubles and contact hitter that it is only likely over a 14-year career he would explode a few times.

I don’t buy it however. Just because his size didn’t change or his hitting style was pretty damn consistent doesn’t exempt him. Remember the first guy to be suspended under MLB’s new drug testing policy? Yup, former Devil Ray great Alex Sanchez, a career .296 hitter with 6 home runs. Yes, 6 career home runs. The guy was small as hell and kept the same game through his short career, but steroids obviously were needed to improve what he brought to the table.

Easily On Roids. Sorry Ben Jones

Not to sound cocky or anything, but I feel like if I was a big enough loser I could go through all the stats of “consistent” players of the past decade I would be able to nab probably 50% of the players that are on that apparent steroid list. The toughest would be judging the pitchers, but honestly, if you see any players that had those two or three years that jump off the page, they were on the juice. I’m talking about those seasons where you look back and go…how the hell did that season not win them the MVP? Especially if it is a player in a smaller market who played on sub-par teams that kept them from standing out each night on ESPN.

Time for everyone to start submitting their steroid suspicions, because I’m going to start looking a little closer at the back of baseball cards now.

Additionally, did anyone know that Helton was the starting quarterback for Tennessee at one point as a two sport athlete, and it was thought that he would become a pretty big player? He got hurt though, which gave some hick freshmen named Peyton Manning a chance to start. Yea, Tenn really benefited from that one..