A plaque commemorating Todd Helton’s retired No. 17 holds a place of honor at Coors Field. It’s easy to spot on the facade above right-center field.

On the main concourse, under the ballpark’s giant scoreboard, the Helton Burger Shack does a brisk business, serving up shakes, fries and, of course, burgers, with a secret Helton sauce.

The man, now 45, was a career .316 hitter who mashed 369 home runs over a 17-year career. He was a five-time all-star and won three Gold Gloves at first base. He is a Colorado sports icon, but is he a legitimate candidate to be enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.?

He’s eligible for the first time in 2019.

For most Rockies fans, it’s a no-brainer that the first baseman belongs in the Hall of Fame, but that consensus is not universal. As Rockies’ great Larry Walker has discovered, Coors Field’s reputation as a hitter’s paradise casts a long shadow.

Following is a breakdown of the arguments for and against Helton’s induction into Cooperstown.

The basics: Candidates must receive at least 75 percent of the vote from eligible voters from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. Candidates can be on the ballot for 10 years, but they must receive at least 5 percent of the vote every year to remain on the ballot.

There are 35 candidates on the 2019 ballot, and BBWAA voters have until Dec. 31 to cast ballots. Results will be announced Jan. 22, and the 2019 Hall of Fame class will be inducted July 21.

Trending: As of Friday, 79 of an estimated 412 ballots had been made public. According to early tabulations by Hall of Fame tracker Ryan Thibodaux, Helton had received 21.5 percent of the vote (17 of 79).

Walker, who is on the ballot for the ninth time, had received 64.6 percent of the vote (51 of 79), a dramatic increase from 34.1 percent last year.

By comparison: Helton, who finished his career with 2,519 hits (including 592 doubles), is one of only two players in baseball history to have at least 2,500 hits, 550 doubles, 350 home runs and a career batting average of .315 or higher. The other? Hall of Famer Stan Musial.

Helton is one of just seven players players who own a .316 career batting average, .414 on-base percentage and .539 slugging percentage over at least 1,000 career games. The others: Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Rogers Hornsby, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig and Musial, all of whom are in the Hall of Fame. Related Articles Rockies’ Daniel Bard finishing up improbable season on a high note

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Helton is the only player in MLB history to have 35 or more doubles in at least 10 consecutive seasons (1998–2007). He was also a stalwart on defense, with three Gold Glove Awards at first base to his credit. He is tied for seventh all-time among first baseman in MLB history in fielding percentage (.9962).

Split decision: Rockies position players often see their statistics discounted because they play half their games in one of the majors’ most favorable hitters’ park. And there’s no question that Helton’s career splits are dramatic. He posted a .345/.441/.607 slash line and hit 227 of his 369 career homers in the mile-high air.

But Helton road numbers were solid: .287/.386/.469. And consider this: Helton’s career .855 OPS away from Coors Field is better than the road marks of several Hall of Famers, including Dave Winfield (.841), Eddie Murray (.838), Rickey Henderson (.836), Tony Gwynn (.835), Al Kaline (.827) and George Brett (.825).

JAWS and James: Helton finished his career with a 53.9 JAWS rating, a system created by writer Jay Jaffe that evaluates a player’s worthiness for enshrinement by comparing him to the Hall of Famers at his position. Helton’s JAWS rating is close to the average of 54.7 for first basemen already enshrined in Cooperstown. As Jaffe recently noted Helton’s JAWS score is higher than Hall of Fame first baseman such as Orlando Cepeda, Harmon Killebrew, and Tony Pérez.

Still, given that Helton played half his games at Coors, Jaffe recently concluded: “Helton is no slam dunk. I suspect most voters will see him as a borderline pick, somebody to be considered for the last spot on the ballot but not a must-vote.”

Helton, by the way, retired with a 175 Hall of Fame monitor score, a metric created by sabermetrician Bill James where a score over 100 means a player is more than likely to be voted in.

WAR: In terms of WAR (wins above replacement), Helton gets a mixed report card, at least by Hall of Fame standards. According to Fangraphs, Helton’s 61.2 career WAR ranks 17th all-time among first basemen, and below 12 of the 21 enshrined at the Hall including Jeff Bagwell, Jim Thome, and Frank Thomas, whose careers overlapped with Helton’s.

As Jaffe notes, Helton in his prime (1998-2009), put up a 59.2 WAR that ranked sixth in the majors behind only Alex Rodriguez (90.9), Albert Pujols (73.8, starting in 2001), Chipper Jones (64.5), Scott Rolen (59.7), and Derek Jeter (59.6) during his best years. But poor production in his final four seasons barely lifted his number.

Longevity vs. productivity: From 1998 through 2009, Helton was one of baseball’s best first basemen and was considered an elite hitter. Although he blasted only 15 home runs in 2009, he still hit .325, had 38 double with a .416 on-base percentage and posted a .904 OPS.

But the final four years of his career numbers, when he was injured much of the time, pale by comparison. He hit .264 and had only 44 home runs. He managed just a 97 OPS+ over the final four years of his career. OPS+ takes a player’s on-base plus slugging percentage and normalizes the number across the entire league. It accounts for external factors such as ballparks. It then adjusts so a score of 100 is the league average.

Then again, Helton played 2,247 games, all of them in a Rockies uniform. He’s Colorado’s career leader in games played, at bats (7,962), runs (1,401), hits, total bases (4,292), doubles, home runs, RBIs (1,406), walks (1,335), and intentional walks (185).

Those numbers make Helton, unquestionably, the face of the franchise.

But will he be immortalized in Cooperstown? Not in 2019, but down the road he certainly has a good chance.