Todd Helton
Todd Helton was one of the best players in all of baseball for a few seasons after the turn of the century, and when he retired after 17 seasons with the Colorado Rockies, he owned just about every batting record in the franchise's history.
During his rookie season of 1998, Helton led all rookies in batting average, home runs, RBI, total bases, and extra base hits, and led all NL rookies in hits and runs. He came in #2 in the NL Rookie of the Year vote behind Kerry Wood, who had an amazing season pitching for the Cubs.
Two years later, he had his very best season, and very nearly won the Triple Crown, leading the league in batting average and RBI, along with doubles, total bases, and extra base hits, but ended up with only 42 homers, 7 behind Barry Bonds for the lead. He was also just the 5th player in history to record 200 hits, 40 homers, and 100 RBI's, runs, extra base hits, and walks in a single season, along with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg, all of whom retired before 1950, and still somehow only finished 5th in the MVP voting.
The following season he reached his career high with 49 home runs, which tied the Rockies' franchise record, and surpassed 100 extra base hits again, becoming only the third player ever to do that twice in a career, joining Lou Gehrig and Chuck Klein, and he was the only one to do it in back-to-back seasons. His great season was overshadowed by Barry Bonds hitting 73 home runs, but Helton was definitely one of the top players in the league at only 27 years old.
Helton kept his batting average over .300 for 10 consecutive seasons to open his career, and he had at least 35 doubles in each of those seasons as well. For 6 straight seasons, from 2000 to 2005, he finished in the top 4 in the league in batting average. He is #19 all-time in doubles, and is also among the top 100 all-time in batting average, runs, hits, total bases, home runs, RBI's, and walks.
Despite his excellent regular season numbers, Helton only made the playoffs twice in 17 seasons, and in the 2007, when the Rockies reached the World Series, Helton struggled, getting only 9 hits in 41 at-bats during the playoffs, and his career playoff batting average (.211), is significantly lower than his regular season average (.316)
He may not have been a great playoff player in limited opportunities, but when you look at the whole of his career, he was a great hitter who also had power, he performed at a very high level for a long time, and he was robbed of an MVP that he definitely deserved.
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