DNVR Exclusive: The Cooperstown campaign for Larry Walker begins again

On Thursday, Manny Randhawa of MLB.com and StatCast held an event in coordination with the Rocky Mountain chapter of SABR over in LoDo at Blake Street Tavern to make the case for Larry Walker’s Hall of Fame candidacy.

In his last year of eligibility to be elected on the writers’ ballot, the event began the unofficial kickoff campaign to get Walker into the hallowed halls of Cooperstown.

This began the unofficial kickoff for the final season of campaigning for Walker who is in his last year of eligibility to be elected on the writers’ ballot rather than having to wait for a veterans’ committee years down the line.

While it seems inevitable that Walker could eventually be enshrined by a veterans’ committee, Randhawa began the evening by unequivocally claiming that this would be an injustice. If Walker does not end up in the Hall this year, he will be the most talented and eligible player to ever be left out by the writers.

Guest speakers included original Rockies’ broadcaster Wayne Hagin and former GM of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago White Sox Dan Evans. Thomas Harding of MLB.com and Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post also took some time to add to the case, not to mention  yours truly offering a few brief comments on retiring Walkers’ number and a few guerrilla tactics on how to make sure the best arguments end up being heard by those who vote.

The Colorado Rockies even had representation at the event as most of the leaders of the Communications and Marketing department were in attendance.

Plenty of stories were shared about Walker’s natural abilities, gambling habits, and early misunderstandings about the game – like the one when he infamously cut across the diamond over the pitchers’ mound trying to get back to first after taking off on a fly ball during his first minor league season.

But, as Hagin put it, “he never made the same mistake twice.”

We had the opportunity to speak with Hagin for an upcoming episode of the DNVR Rockies Podcast and anyone who listens to that show regularly has heard almost all of the information that was presented but it was still worth seeing it all in one place.

Randhawa painstakingly went over the details that dispel each of the nonsense narratives that have put the most “talented Rockie of all time,” according to Hagin, into this precarious position in the first place. Using advanced metrics and some basic logic, he and Evans honed in on how Coors Field had less of an impact on Walker’s statistics than the home ballparks of countless other ballplayers including Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski.

They showed how the notion that he didn’t play in enough games was a concept that has not been applied to plenty of Hall of Famers who missed significant time in their career due to injuries.

Somehow, we all forgot to mention that now that relievers and designated hitters are getting in, Walker would be far from the bottom of the list of innings played should he rightfully enter the Hall.

The difficulties that he faced hitting on the road, while still putting up basically the same away stats that Ken Griffey Jr. put up, was a huge part of the presentation.

It was also pointed out that one of the biggest forces working against Walker is the fact that he never vaulted Colorado into the playoffs after his first season with the franchise in 1995. He was stupendous nearly a decade later during his postseason run with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2004.

But, somewhat tragically, his first and possibly best opportunity in October was cut short in 1994 with his original team, the Montreal Expos. At 74-40 with the best record in the game, Walker’s season – and that of all of MLB – came to a halt on August 11 because of the players’ strike and the entirety of the postseason was wiped away.

As such, Walker’s national exposure has been limited.

Far too few members of the voting electorate truly paid close attention to Walker during his career, making events like this necessary. Comparisons to Derek Jeter, who is expected to be on nearly every ballot in his first year despite in no way being a better player than Walker, drove this point home.

If the big Canadian had roamed right field in Yankee Stadium, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

There will be full audio and video available from the event soon and we will follow up with Randhawa, a regular guest on the DNVR Rockies Podcast, for more on this conversation and to get the skinny on his upcoming book The Blake Street Bombers.

For now, we can all begin banging the drum more loudly. And Rocky Mountain SABR is helping to get the ball rolling:

It’s #WALKERHOF season.

Here’s a list of each @officialBBWAA writer who did not vote for Larry Walker on last year’s Hall of Fame ballot.

This is it. This is Walker’s last year on the ballot.

Let them know why they should vote for him!@Rockies @Cardinals @Montreal_Expos pic.twitter.com/KH8L6sQZGf

— Rocky Mountain SABR (@SABRrocky) October 26, 2019

Before the event began we had a chance to catch up with Hagin who summed up his feelings – and the feelings of most Rockies fans on this whole ordeal – with a pair of words he decidedly chose to make family friendly after some consideration.

“It’s nonsense,” he said. “It’s hogwash.”