Larry Walker: Another non-HOFer getting fluffed

Once again, it's an ESPN columnist fluffing somebody who is a definite for the Hall of the Very Good, but NOT the Hall of Fame.

Jim Caple does the "honors" with Larry Walker.

I gave brief sketches here of why most the people eligible for the Hall on this year's ballot shouldn't get in. Let's look at what I said there about Walker:

Should not get in, any year, though I loved the guy as a Cards fan. Great fielder, but, outside of pre-humidor Colorado, he's a much more iffy batter, for his road splits as a Rocky, before that as an Expo, and after that. Had he not had injury problems, maybe he could have "sold us," but, he did and so he couldn't. (Todd Helton will face similar issues, and with the number of 1B in the league, probably won't qualify either.)

I think that's it in a nutshell.

Caple admits to Walker's injury history, but tries to downplay the nature of Walker's home-road splits. So, let's look at some key Walker stats:

                                                                        
Year    Age   Tm    R    H  2B 3B  HR  RBI  SB   BA  OBP  SLG   OPS OPS+
1989     22  MON    4    8   0  0   0    4   1 .170 .264 .170  .434   26
1990     23  MON   59  101  18  3  19   51  21 .241 .326 .434  .761  112
1991     24  MON   59  141  30  2  16   64  14 .290 .349 .458  .807  127
1992     25  MON   85  159  31  4  23   93  18 .301 .353 .506  .859  142
1993     26  MON   85  130  24  5  22   86  29 .265 .371 .469  .841  120
1994     27  MON   76  127  44  2  19   86  15 .322 .394 .587  .981  151
1995     28  COL   96  151  31  5  36  101  16 .306 .381 .607  .988  130
1996     29  COL   58   75  18  4  18   58  18 .276 .342 .570  .912  116
1997     30  COL  143  208  46  4  49  130  33 .366 .452 .720 1.172  178
1998     31  COL  113  165  46  3  23   67  14 .363 .445 .630 1.075  158
1999     32  COL  108  166  26  4  37  115  11 .379 .458 .710 1.168  163
2000     33  COL   64   97  21  7   9   51   5 .309 .409 .506  .915  110
2001     34  COL  107  174  35  3  38  123  14 .350 .449 .662 1.111  160
2002     35  COL   95  161  40  4  26  104   6 .338 .421 .602 1.023  150
2003     36  COL   86  129  25  7  16   79   7 .284 .422 .476  .898  121
2004     37  TOT   51   77  16  4  17   47   6 .298 .424 .589 1.013  153
2004     37  COL   22   35   9  3   6   20   2 .324 .464 .630 1.093  166
2004     37  STL   29   42   7  1  11   27   4 .280 .393 .560  .953  143
2005     38  STL   66   91  20  1  15   52   2 .289 .384 .502  .886  130
17 Seasons       1355 2160 471 62 383 1311 230 .313 .400 .565  .965  140
162 Game Avg.     110  176  38  5  31  107  19 .313 .400 .565  .965  140
                    R    H  2B 3B  HR  RBI  SB   BA  OBP  SLG   OPS OPS+
COL (10 yrs)      892 1361 297 44 258  848 126 .334 .426 .618 1.044  147
MON (6 yrs)       368  666 147 16  99  384  98 .281 .357 .483  .839  128
STL (2 yrs)        95  133  27  2  26   79   6 .286 .387 .520  .908  134

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 12/31/2010.

And, let's do my own thumbnail neutralization.

First, every player is going to have a bit of home-road split, just from the relaxation of not traveling, the support of home fans, etc. And, yes, some older parks may have had fairly serious boosts (or, in the case of DiMaggio in the original configuration of old Yankee Stadium, some detriment). But, Walker's is much greater than normal.

My guess?

His BA falls to about .308, his hit total to 2,050, his doubles to 450, his HRs to 350, his runs to 1,250 and his RBIs to 1,200. I think that's a reasonable normalization of his career numbers.

And, you don't just need my rule-of-thumb guesses. At Baseball-Reference, if you click the "more stats" link near the top of Walker's profile, you'll get much more of a profile, including neutralized states. They peg him at a .299 BA, 365 HRs, 1,201 runs and 1,175 RBIs.

Can you really say that's a Hall of Fame career? I won't. And, as for a string of dominance, with park normalization he might have lost the first of his batting titles, to John Olerud. And, lost his one home run title in 1997 to Jeff Bagwell, who was still playing in the Astrodome.

So, Mr. Jim Caple, and far from the first time for you or most ESPNers on the Hall of Fame, you're wrong.

As a Cards fan, I loved Walker's brief stay there. Hated that a variety of nagging, chronic injuries ended that, and his career, too soon.

But, they were nagging, chronic injuries. Not a sudden thing, like Sandy Koufax's arthritis or Kirby Puckett's vision. That said, Puckett wasn't an obvious HOF choice to me then, and still isn't now.