Celebrated Canadian baseball player Larry Walker is in his final year of Baseball Hall of Fame candidacy, and it looks as though it's going to come down to the wire.
Walker played 18 MLB seasons but didn't pick up baseball as a serious sport until he was 16. He grew up in Maple Ridge, B.C., a hockey goaltender with dreams of playing in the NHL. Improbably, Walker got a shot with the now-defunct Montreal Expos in the mid-1980s and developed into one of baseball's top right fielders and all-around players in the '90s.
Retired since 2005, Walker became Hall of Fame-eligible in 2011, but he's reached the end of his candidacy. If he doesn't reach the 75 percent ballot threshold to be inducted this year, he will lose his Hall eligibility — unless one of Cooperstown's era committees chooses to induct him down the road.
The Colorado Rockies — who Walker played 10 seasons for — announced on Monday the club will retire Walker's number on April 19. Surely he will want to attend the ceremony as a newly-made member of the Hall of Fame as well.
MORE: Everything to know about the 2020 Baseball Hall of Fame announcement
Here's why Walker's potential induction has cast such attention in the baseball community:
It's Larry Walker's last year of eligibility
A 2014 rule change to the Hall of Fame's eligibility process and voting rules determined that players could only be on the ballot for 10 years rather than the previously-allotted 15. This particularly affected Walker, who was in his fourth season of eligibility at the time — he then only had six more opportunities to get into the Hall.
As Sporting News' Ryan Fagan wrote in a January 2019 column, the so-called 'ballot squeeze' also affected Walker in particular. Writers can only vote for a maximum of 10 players every year; for much of Walker's candidacy, there were simply better options for which to vote.
Walker's vote tallies also trended downward and dangerously close to under five percent in 2014, which would have rendered him ineligible for the Hall moving forward. Since then, his voting tallies have trended back upward — Walker was one of three candidates in 2019 to receive at least 50 percent of votes and not be elected (Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds made up the other two).
Here are the voting tallies for Walker in his first nine years of eligibility:
2011: 20.3 percent
2012: 22.9 percent
2013: 21.6 percent
2014: 10.2 percent
2015: 11.8 percent
2016: 15.5 percent
2017: 21.9 percent
2018: 34.1 percent
2019: 54.6 percent
He experienced a significant rise in both 2018 and 2019 and given that Derek Jeter is the only new addition to the ballot this year (who seems destined for a Hall of Fame election), this could finally be Walker's year to join Cooperstown.
How Larry Walker stacks up against other Hall of Famers
Larry Walker hit .313/.400/.565 over his career with 383 runs and 1311 runs batted in. He won the National League's MVP award in 1997, was a five-time All-Star, won seven gold gloves and three silver slugger awards and three batting titles. The man could play ball.
According to CBS Sports' Matt Snyder, only nine other players in history have hit at least .300/.400/.500 over a Hall of Fame-qualifying career (at least 10 years in MLB). You may recognize a few of these names: Babe Ruth, Manny Ramirez, Jimmie Foxx, Frank Thomas, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, Stan Musial, Hank Greenberg and Rogers Hornsby.
Of those players, only Ramirez is not in the Hall — and his two suspensions for performance-enhancing drug use are likely the reason why.
The "What about Coors Field?" argument
Walker played a majority of his career (10 seasons) with the Colorado Rockies, a team cursed by the powers of playing at a higher elevation in Denver. Coors Field stands at an elevation of 5,200 feet; as a result, air density is about 80 percent of what it is at sea level, according to Sports Illustrated. Baseballs fly 20 percent further and breaking pitches move 20 percent less, making for a pitcher's nightmare and one of the most hitter-friendly ballparks in the majors.
This plays into Walker's candidacy because his career hitting splits at home (.348/.431/.637, 1.068 OPS) are significantly better than on the road (.278./370./495, .865 OPS). It's a simple argument to make; Walker's career stats are inflated because of how much time he spent playing at Coors Field.
There is one stat that can be used to argue against that idea; OPS+ adjusts for ballpark effects and puts players on a scale, making 100 league average. According to FanGraphs, each point above or below 100 means a player is one percent above or below league average. Walker's career OPS+ is 141 — making him a better hitter than 41 percent of players regardless of Coors Field's effects.
How many votes does Larry Walker have so far?
Some Baseball Writers' Association of America members choose to make their ballots public each year by way of a column or Twitter. Analyst Ryan Thibodeaux keeps track of all publicly available votes via an open-access spreadsheet. Based on Thibodeaux's calculations, 41.3 percent of all ballots this year are public as of Jan. 18, estimating 412 total votes were cast, meaning Walker needs at least 309 votes to earn 75 percent and get into the Hall.
Walker currently polls at 85.3 percent based on the votes currently tallied — good news for him. He needs to appear on at least 67.8 percent of the remaining ballots to finally make it into Cooperstown.
The BBWAA will announce the results of its 2020 Hall of Fame ballot on Jan. 21 at 6 p.m. ET.