Todd Helton

Very quietly Todd Helton of the Rockies has made his way into the top 10 in batting average in the NL (sixth place with a .309 average). Helton had an awful (for him) first half, hitting just .288, but since the All-Star break he's been hitting at a .360 clip.

Helton has a career .336 average. That's good enough to put him in 23rd place on the all-time list.

It is puzzling that Helton would have such a dramatic power outage though. This year he has just 17 HR and it looks like he's going to snap his streak of 6 straight seasons with 30+ HR. Helton's SLG is also down almost 100 points from his career average (.515 vs. .607).

It is true that he did land on the DL this year for the first time in his career but that was with a strained calf muscle. That shouldn't explain his power outage. It is also true that he has nobody to protect him in the line-up - making it easy to pitch around him. That would explain the lower HR but not so much the lower SLG.

Things like his low HR totals and low SLG will make some people scratch their heads and wonder if he's a "steroids guy". Anything is possible. I bring this up with Helton because he's one of my favorite players and I wanted to illustrate how the steroid using guys have also tainted the players who did it the natural way.

Helton had to face steroid allegations early in the season and later so did Johnny Damon. I would never guess or think either was a steroids user. I do admit that sometimes people put blinders on as far as their favorite players are concerned. I stand by my conviction that neither was a cheater but I also stand by my belief that that players brought this air of "did he or didn't he" on themselves by not rooting out the cheaters when they KNEW it was going on.

I think the fact is that Helton just got off to a slow start on a team that offered him little protection in the line-up. In July his SLG was .667 and in August .657. If he had just an average April instead of a dismal one - he'd be at 20+ HR and SLG .550.