Larry Walker Continues to be Overlooked
The Colorado Rockies – an organization that has been around for almost three decades – have a short list of qualities that make their franchise noteworthy. Amongst maybe a handful of notable figures and occurrences associated with the organization, Larry Walker’s name is featured maybe more than any other. He deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
A career .313/.400/.565 hitter, Walker consistently put up monster numbers for a struggling Rockies franchise in the late ‘90’s-early 2000’s while averaging 27 homeruns a year from ’92-’02 including two seasons in which he played in less than 90 games. In fact, his 1997-year garnered honors for a Gold Glove, Silver Slugger, an All-Star appearance, and he was the Rockies’ only MVP award winner in their 28-year existence. There’s no question that Walker is one of Colorado’s greats. But how does he stack up against the all-time greats?
This will be Larry Walker’s ninth year on the ballot for Hall of Fame voting. A system that allows players to be eligible for election for up to ten years, Walker finds himself down to his last two remaining chances to gain entrance into baseball’s shrine. In order to be admitted, a candidate must receive at least 75% of the votes. Walker only received 34% last year, ranking him seventh behind guys like Omar Vizquel, Curt Schilling, and highly controversial candidates Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.
Despite Walker’s current status behind alleged PED users and players who have been on the ballot for less time, this is not the first time he has taken a back seat. In fact, one could argue that Walker’s entire career was overlooked. Let’s take a closer look at his stats from a few of his more dominating years:
| Year | Age | Tm | Lg | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS |
| 1995 | 28 | COL | NL | 131 | 562 | 494 | 96 | 151 | 31 | 5 | 36 | 101 | 16 | 3 | 49 | 72 | .306 | .381 | .607 | .988 |
| 1997 | 30 | COL | NL | 153 | 664 | 568 | 143 | 208 | 46 | 4 | 49 | 130 | 33 | 8 | 78 | 90 | .366 | .452 | .720 | 1.172 |
| 1999 | 32 | COL | NL | 127 | 513 | 438 | 108 | 166 | 26 | 4 | 37 | 115 | 11 | 4 | 57 | 52 | .379 | .458 | .710 | 1.168 |
| 2001 | 34 | COL | NL | 142 | 601 | 497 | 107 | 174 | 35 | 3 | 38 | 123 | 14 | 5 | 82 | 103 | .350 | .449 | .662 | 1.111 |
| 2002 | 35 | COL | NL | 136 | 553 | 477 | 95 | 161 | 40 | 4 | 26 | 104 | 6 | 5 | 65 | 73 | .338 | .421 | .602 | 1.023 |
(Bold numbers indicate he led all of MLB)
Aside from his deserving MVP-year in ’97, Walker put up equally impressive numbers in each of the other campaigns listed above. However, Walker finished 7th, 17th, 10th, 24th, and 20th in MVP-voting, respectively. It’s hard to imagine anyone putting up numbers like these in today’s game and not being at least a finalist in today’s MVP voting.
Understandably, hitting isn’t the whole picture, especially in today’s game. But Walker wasn’t just an offensive machine. He won seven Gold Gloves throughout his career. Looking back at some of his defensive stats (taken from FanGraphs), Walker posted a 3.4 Ultimate Zone Rating and 10.3 ARM rating in ’02, a year in which he finished with a Gold Glove, but finished 20th in the MVP race to go along with that monster offensive slash-line. To put these numbers into perspective, we wrote an article a few weeks back looking at the defensive contributions of the members of the Red Sox outfield this season. In short, Walker’s UZR in ’02 was comparable to Andrew Benintendi in 2018. His ARM rating? Better than Mookie Betts, Benintendi, and Jackie Bradley Jr.
Although Walker may be just be the unfortunate recipient of playing in an era that included other offensive legends like Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGuire, he certainly held his own without any PED controversy during the heart of the steroid era.
So why is Walker having such a tough time getting into the Hall? One reason that Walker himself expressed is because of that fact that he played at Coors Field. Coors Field, located in Denver, Colorado, is notorious for its thin air. As a result, balls hit in the air often travel more due to the lack of resistance, or drag, the baseball has against it. As such, Rockies players are dinged for their offensive performance at home, a bias that still permeates the game today as stars like Charlie Blackmon, Trevor Story, and Nolan Arenado are overlooked for monster offensive accomplishments
In fact, during a radio show, Walker shared his thoughts on the matter and even compared playing at Coors Field to using steroids:
“I can’t fault myself. I played for a major league team that happened to be in Denver. If that’s a problem and if that’s going to be an issue for them, then get rid of the team and move it elsewhere if it’s going to be that big of an issue. No needles went in my ass. I played the game clean, but I played in the ballpark and it’s almost like Coors Field is my PED.”
There’s no question that Larry Walker is an all-time great Colorado Rocky. The question is, is he an all-time great period. I think yes. It’s hard to argue when someone plays in the heart of the steroid era and puts up the type of numbers he did, all while being clean. However, it’s also hard to gain an extra 41% of votes in one year. Whatever winds up happening, it’s time we stop overlooking Larry Walker contribution to baseball throughout his career. He is most certainly deserving of the Hall.
-Mike Lambiaso
