Two years ago I thought Helton was on a pace to be a deserving Hall of Famer.  I'm no longer so sure; his production has slipped significantly and as a hitter (adjusted for park) he has fallen behind contemporaries such as Jason Giambi, Lance Berkman, and Vladimir Guerrero.

Obviously, if you're still being mentioned in the same phrase with these guys, who have a profile that generally fits a Hall of Famer.  And Helton's raw numbers (helped by all those years in Coors Field) are better than those adjusted nubmers.  But while analytcal types complain that the writers don't understand park effects, they claim to understand Coors Field all too well.  Unfortunately, like most analytical types, that understanding usually takes the form of writing off as indecipherable anything that happens in Denver or accomplished by a member of the Rockies.  It will take decades, not years, to put Helton in the Hall as a result.

Knowing what I know about Helton's back and having followed the situatiuon for three-plus years now (as a Todd Helton owner in fantasy ball, you grow very used to reading the entrails for guidance in interpreting descriptions of sore backs) I thjink his chance at the Hall of Fame, which rested on a couple of more batting titles, are likely gone.  What Helton needs, ironically, is for Coors to continue its decline as a hitter's paradise; once accomplished, people may one day forget about the park stuff.

With all due respect, Mike G, I think most baseball historians would put the burden of proof on you to make the case, since yours is the minority view.  I will make three points:

* The eye injury was not a nick or a scrape.  He suffered a devastating infection that blinded him for the entire 1923/age 30 season (after going a ridiculous .420/.467/.594 in his age 29 year).  When he was well enough to see double, he returned to his livelihood and hit consistently .300 despite his significant handicap (and his contemporaries often wondered what might have been if a healthy Sisler had played several more years).  I therefore think Sandy Koufax is a better analogy to Sisler than, say, Keith Hernandez.

* Putting this aside, holding Sisler accountable for a walks-and-power deficiency (relative to his batting average, anyway) is a little like blaming him for not drinking Myoplex shakes after stepping out of the hyperbaric chamber.  He was perhaps the foremost dead-ball offensive weapon in baseball prior to his injury, and post-injury he became somewhat anachronistic because burly sluggers were transforming the game in a way the skinny Sisler couldn't.  As he was a brilliant player with superb bat control, I find it hard to believe that Sisler's walks wouldn't have been higher in an era with greater emphasis on patience.  His OPS+ decline post-injury reflected not only his injury-riddled sinking ship, but equally the rising tide of home runs.

* Don't forget about the value, not adequately reflected in OBP, of his speed and contact ability.  Leaving aside the relative importance of the running game in the dead ball era (has a recent study translated this?), the glove technology, field conditions, harsh official scoring, etc. made errors more plentiful -- every position in Sisler's era fielded about 20-35 percentage points lower than today, even in the outfield.  Thus, given his quickness and incredibly low strikeouts (ten top-10 finishes in at-bats per strikeout), it's safe to assume that he benefited from bad-hop errors more than most of his time.  Batter's strikeouts were costlier then than now.

Mike G, I think I might not have expressed myself as clearly as I would've liked.

Clarification #1:  By "dead-ball era," I was referring not to a time of statistical offensive deflation, but rather a style of play in which home runs were not and could not have been a major component of run scoring.  (Mind you, Sisler was a great star from 1916-1919, in which hitting numbers were deflated.  He started to post video-game numbers once the hitting surge of the '20s started.)  In Clark's era, although pitchers comparatively reigned, walks and homers were nevertheless an indispensable part of a club's offensive profile.  In Sisler's pre-1920 era, home runs were not realistic and his ability to hit for average, hit for extra bases and run the bases was more valuable than his OPS+ might imply today (although it was excellent).  After he returned from injury, he lacked both the physical power and the eyesight to be an OPS monster given the sea change in the league's style of play.

Clarification #2:  I didn't mean to rehash the strikeout/ground ball debate.  Rather, I'm saying that given the greater likelihood of errors on balls in play, it is statistically very likely that someone who has been Top 10 in at-bats per strikeout ten times (your "really nothing special" conclusion overstates the case); in stolen bases nine times; in triples eight times; and in singles thirteen times would get on base due to opposing fielding errors more than would his peers.  Of course, this (presumed) competitive advantage would not show up in his OBP.

Clarification #3:  My point about Koufax is not to equate his peak to Sisler's (though it isn't totally unfair); my point is that Sisler was fundamentally a very different player after his injury, such that his pre-injury stats should be weighted as heavily as Koufax's pre-injury stats (although Sandy played through great pain in '66).   Sisler was injured for his entire age 30 season, when Koufax finished his peak.  Perversely, Sisler would look better by a career OPS+ analysis if he had elected not to make a comeback and hit .300 six more times rather than staying home with his impaired vision.

By the way, Koufax was top 5 in ERA+ six times; Sisler was top 5 in OPS+ five times (and he finished sixth in '21), all prior to his injury.  I guess I'm just saying that it isn't fair to employ a "peak/career" analysis when the peak was suddenly truncated under these circumstances.

I'll look up his pre-injury Win Shares tonight to see if they help or hurt my case.

And while we're at it, let's look at home park factors (per BBRef):

Sportsman's Park-AL (from 1915 until 1922):  96, 95, 96, 97, 103, 103, 106, 104.

Coors Field (from 1997 until 2006):  123, 119, 129, 131, 122, 121, 112, 120, 113, 107.

I note this while acknowledging that Sisler was a devastating home-park hitter that benefited from his park more than the park factors would imply.