Up Against It

Todd Helton puts up big numbers and says all the right things. Does he have to leave Colorado to prove his worth?

by Buster Olney

Todd Helton's instinct is to stay and fight, because that's what he said he would do. He signed a contract that locks him up into the next Ice Age, he gave his word and, without complaint, he will stand at his post.

Helton is the first baseman and leader of the Colorado Rockies, which, in baseball circles, is like being commander of the Alamo. His team is among the worst in the game, and there are serious doubts about whether any band of baseball brothers can thrive in oxygen-deprived Coors Field.

Sitting in the Rockies clubhouse late in spring training, the eight-year vet is surrounded by rookies, fresh-faced and optimistic, just like those who came and went before. At this moment, Helton has played with 204 different teammates since the beginning of 1998. Among players who've been with the same team during this period, only the Padres' Trevor Hoffman has survived more turnover. But Helton won't leave unless ordered and, if he stays, it's possible-perhaps even inevitable-that he and the Rockies will get crushed by the competition year after year after year.

Larry Walker used to have the cubicle next to his--Helton is sure of that--but he struggles to remember the parade of Rockies who inhabited the other lockers nearby. "It's kind of like you don't want to become too good a friend with somebody, because you know they're going to be gone," Helton says. "That's the bad part of the whole thing."

Just then, one of his best friends on the team walks quietly past. It's Greg Norton, who led the majors in pinch-hits in 2003. "You okay?" Helton asks. Norton nods, but he's not okay. He's been cut. Helton lowers his voice and suddenly seems selfconscious. He keeps glancing at Norton, checking on him. There is etiquette to follow in this situation, and Helton has had far too much practice at doing the right thing.

Norton steps out of the room. Bring on No. 205. Helton is angry, and concerned for his friend. "That's the part that sucks," he says.

But it's not the only thing that Helton is up against these days. At 31, he's one of the greatest hitters of his generation, yet the only time he gets any real attention is at the All-Star Game or when a St. Louis radio guy haphazardly accuses him of being on the juice. He took a .339 career batting average into 2005, yet detractors are quick to point out that it's pumped up by a .377 mark at Coors. If he plays another decade, as he plans to, he should be good for 3,000 hits (he had 1,372 after seven full seasons) and maybe a few Gold Gloves, yet like a latter-day Ernie Banks, his Hall of Fame credentials may never be validated in October.

The faces keep changing, and the Rockies keep losing. They won their opener, then promptly dropped eight in a row and 10 of 11, settling to their customary position at the bottom of the NL West. Speculation is rampant that Helton will be dealt-maybe to the Orioles, maybe to the Dodgers. Executives with other teams are convinced the Rockies will be forced to trade Helton, for the same reason the Rangers swapped Alex Rodriguez while eating $67 million: a rebuilding team can't afford to devote a big chunk of its payroll to one guy. In the middle of the 11-year, $151.5 million deal he signed in 2001, Helton is earning $12.6 million this season, a quarter of the Rockies' budget (20 of his teammates make less than $400,000). And Helton's deal is back-loaded: he's owed $16.6 million a year from 2006 to 2010, then $19.1 million in 2011. He will have an option, in the fall of 2006, to void the last years of the contract. Don't bet on it.

Dan O'Dowd says he has no plans to deal Helton, and Helton has no plans to force the GM's hand. He'll stay and fight, because that's what he said he'd do. "It's a contract and it has a meaning," Helton says. "If you sign it, you're obligated to live up to it, just like the team is. Probably 99% of America thinks it's ridiculous that Terrell Owens would ask to restructure his deal. He wouldn't ask to restructure it if he did badly.

"I accept the direction the franchise is taking. I don't accept losing. But I don't think we're going to lose for long. Not to say we don't have problems, but every team has problems."

No other team has the kinds of problems the Rockies do.

O'DOWD BRIEFS his first baseman intermittently, chatting informally on the field, in the clubhouse, calling him on the phone in the off-season, detailing plans to improve the team. Helton has no desire to participate in personnel decisions, but he has made one request. "Pick a plan, and go with it," he says. "In today's world, everybody wants a quick fix, and there's not really a quick fix, especially in the situation we're in." Says O'Dowd, "He just wanted a commitment to stay with a direction. My perception is he's enjoying this process, he likes our young players, he feels pretty good about them. But I'm sure he's going to get frustrated at times if we're not winning."

The plan is to build with young players. The Rockies do have some exceptional young talent, in particular hard-hitting shortstop Clint Barmes and fast-rising lefthander Jeff Francis, and more prospects are in the pipeline. But there's little depth, and the team has a long way to go, especially as the inhabitants of Coors Field. It's a great place to hit, but it's a tough place to win.

One after another, Rockies pitchers have been crushed by the conditions-even established (and high-priced) veterans like Mike Hampton, Darryl Kile and Denny Neagle. Breaking balls don't break as sharply at a mile high, and confidence is wrecked by negative reinforcement: fly balls that would be outs in other parks either fall in the spacious outfield or land over the fences. You can throw well and get knocked out by the fifth inning.

Gaudy offensive stats can be a fringe benefit. "But position players who have not played in Colorado have no idea what it encompasses," says manager Clint Hurdle. Adds O'Dowd, "Only men can play in our place. Not boys, and not men who are weak of heart." At sea level, you run out a triple and soak up the cheers. In Denver, a triple leaves you gasping. "As the season goes on, you just wear down more quickly," says centerfielder Preston Wilson. Opponents complain to Helton that they can't catch their breath. He remembers one baserunner who blew his nose and sprayed blood on the infield dirt. "I can't get my nose to stop bleeding here," the player told Helton.

The lungs struggle to glean oxygen out of the mile-high air, and without the requisite oxygen, body tissues that are damaged in sprinting, swinging or throwing are slow to heal. It's easier for the Broncos, who have a week between games, or the Nuggets, who spread 82 games over six months. The Rockies play virtually every day.

There is mental erosion, too. Get a five-run lead at Dodger Stadium and you can coast through the late innings. A five-run edge at Coors evaporates quickly; a walk, a hit and a big fly, and all of a sudden you're fighting for your breath and the lead.

All of it is made worse when you're losing as much as the Rockies do. By midsummer, intensity is gone from the field and the stands. And players will tell you that if your team is terrible, umps are more inclined to ring you up on a borderline strike three, or to call you out on a bang-bang play.

Helton is respected among his peers not just for his production, but because he battles through every game, every inning, every strike. "Todd would rather give up a small body part than waste an at-bat," says Hurdle. "Playing hurt is not an issue. Playing with pain is not an issue. He expects this from himself and from his teammates. There's that fine line when you're passionate and you're obsessed, and I think he's right on that line." Says Helton, "Six-year-olds can go out and play a game of baseball. But 162 games, that's a challenge. When your back or your elbows or wrists are hurting, you have to tinker with your swing to make it work a little more. I like that kind of thing."

Hurdle has to force Helton to take days off. "It's usually a struggle," the manager says. "And it usually involves some name-calling." According to Helton, who's played all but 10 games the past two years, "They can rest those other guys all they want. I'm never going to hit sitting on the bench. I've never done anything good on the bench."

When he plays, he usually hits. In his first full season, he listened to the Baseball Tonight crew talk about how he ranked among the leaders in pitches per plate appearance. Standard translation: the lefty hitter had exceptional patience. He heard it differently. "That told me I wasn't as aggressive as I should be," he says. "I know I wasn't."

With his feet spread wide in the batter's box, Helton kept his hands and body low, like a defensive tackle who crouches to keep a running back from busting through the hole. It helped him battle for pitches in the strike zone, but he wasn't doing enough damage. After watching him struggle through the first game of a doubleheader, Hurdle, then the team's hitting coach, suggested a bit of Neanderthal philosophy: just try to hit the ball as far as you can. In his next at-bat, Helton lifted his right leg to jump-start his swing, like a refugee from a softball tournament, and clubbed a home run. He's kept that style ever since, holding his hands higher at the start of his swing, lifting his right foot and then softly planting it milliseconds before slashing the strike zone with his bat.

During the past three seasons, Helton hit .380 at Coors and .310 on the road. But his OPS on the road was a robust .939—remarkable, when you consider how exposed he's often been in the Rockies' lineup. "What he does, he would do anywhere," says Padres GM Kevin Towers. "He knows the strike zone, and he's about as tough a two-strike hitter as there is. He's really a throwback, because he gives away nothing; he just goes out and plays."

Helton purposefully keeps a low profile. Raised in the shadow of Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, he was drafted out of high school by the Padres but rejected their offer so he could play quarterback for Tennessee—a responsibility that ranks, in that part of the world, just below president.

Helton once offered a blunt opinion to a reporter and the next day, an assistant coach approached him. "What are you doing?" he asked. "You can't say these things in the paper!" The young QB learned from that experience; like Derek Jeter, he crafts his answers carefully. "If there's a question that you don't know the answer to, or you think you might offend somebody, you just don't answer it," he says. "You want to be interesting, but nowadays you've got to be like Terrell Owens or Deion Sanders, and that's just not how I was raised."

He was mortified, then, when his name was injected into the steroid controversy this spring by ex-Rockies broadcaster Wayne Hagin, who now works for the Cardinals. Hagin retracted his remark and apologized, as Helton angrily and vehemently denied the assertion, all the while feeling like he'd lost something he could never get back. "It's sad when one guy says something and it's taken as fact," Helton says. "Obviously, he doesn't know what he's talking about."

IT'S TEMPTING to compare Helton to Cal Ripken Jr. or Tony Gwynn, two stars who played with one team their entire careers and became franchise beacons. But both Ripken and Gwynn played in the World Series when they were young. Helton doesn't know what a playoff series feels like.

He sees the potential around him; he loves watching Barmes develop. Two weeks into the season, Helton says, "I haven't helped the team one iota this year. I haven't done anything. These young guys are doing everything. And they're only going to get better."

Still, the pitching staff is a leaking dam: as soon as one hole is plugged, another emerges. It seems futile. Yet Helton is still talking about how much he'd like to be part of a contender someday. In Colorado. "You know, if the Rockies came to me and said, 'You don't fit into our plans,' I'm not going to sit here and kick and scream not to get out," he says. "But I was drafted here, came up through the organization. If I went somewhere else, I don't know how it would feel. I know how it would feel to win here. It would be very rewarding for me, having gone through all we've been through, to finally get to the top of the hill."

The air is even thinner up there.

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Rocky Road

By Steve Phillips

Clearly, the current plan in Colorado isn't working. Dan O'Dowd has tried to find the right formula, but he's been stymied by bad contracts and bad players. Is it possible to win there? Try this five-point plan.

1. Trade Todd Helton for whatever you can get. Gaining financial flexibility is more important than even getting good prospects in return. The Rockies still owe Helton $100M over the next six years. If they were willing to eat $6M a year, someone would take on the rest. At $36M, that's a good deal for Colorado. Cut your losses and move on.

2. Go after pitchers whose salaries don't dominate the payroll, who throw sinkers for strikes, have different looks and can strike batters out. I'm talking about guys like Paul Wilson, Cory Lidle, Jeff Suppan and Jon Lieber. The Cardinals won in 2004 with a collection of No. 2- and No. 3-type starters and a deep bullpen. That formula makes sense in Colorado because an expensive No. 1 starter is going to get knocked around just like everyone else, and a struggling ace has a physical and mental impact on the entire staff. Speaking of which, most teams need 12 major league-quality pitchers. In Colorado, you need 18, so that when a kid struggles you can send him to the minors and bring up a fresh arm and spirit. While we're at it, let's move the Triple-A affiliate away from Colorado Springs and let the pitchers gain confidence at a lower altitude.

3. Offensively, the focus should be on OBP instead of slugging percentage, because most hitters have power in Colorado anyway. A hitter with a good OBP works the count and often finds himself looking at a pitch he can drive. A guy like Brian Roberts would be ideal, because you'd pay for doubles and get home runs. Too bad they traded Juan Pierre.

4. Defense should be a priority (anything to deny the opponents more opportunities to score). Acquire and develop players with range who can catch and throw. Speed is also nice if it doesn't cost too much, but the key is to get players who'll catch what they can reach. Extra outs will kill you.

5. Make the Coors Field home field advantage second to none. Don't apologize to anyone for how the ballpark plays. Relish the fact that it's your home. Understand that opposing pitchers are intimidated there, and that your staff can outlast and outman the opponent because of its depth and balance.

It all sounds so easy. But take it from me, it's not.

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