Todd Helton is one of the most productive home hitters ever

By Sep 16, 2013, 2:48 PM EDT
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In the wake of Rockies first baseman Todd Helton announcing that he’s retiring after the season I was curious about just how much his Coors Field-aided home production stands out.

Thanks to Baseball-Reference.com’s amazing Play Index, here are the active leaders in OPS at home:

TODD HELTON       1.048
Albert Pujols     1.014
Matt Holliday      .999
Carlos Gonzalez    .992
Miguel Cabrera     .988

No hitter has been more productive at their home ballparks than Helton and along with Matt Holliday and Carlos Gonzalez three of the top five home OPS totals belong to current or former Rockies. On the other hand, for career OPS on the road among active players Helton ranks 24th at .856–nearly 200 points below his home mark–and Holliday and Gonzalez rank 37th and 101st.

And here are the all-time leaders in home OPS:

Babe Ruth         1.184
Ted Williams      1.148
Hank Greenberg    1.121
Jimmie Foxx       1.116
Larry Walker      1.068
Barry Bonds       1.067
Lou Gehrig        1.056
TODD HELTON       1.048
Rogers Hornsby    1.032

That’s basically a list of the greatest hitters of all time, plus two really, really good hitters who played a long time with Coors Field as their home ballpark.

Dodgers place pitcher Noah Syndergaard on injured list with no timetable for return

Associated PressJun 8, 2023, 9:19 PM EDT
dodgers syndergaard
Katie Stratman/USA TODAY Sports
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CINCINNATI — The Los Angeles Dodgers placed pitcher Noah Syndergaard on the 15-day injured list Thursday with a blister on the index finger of his right throwing hand.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said the timetable for Syndergaard’s return is unknown despite the 15-day designation.

“The physical, the mental, the emotional part, as he’s talked about, has taken a toll on him,” Roberts said. “So, the ability to get him away from this. He left today to go back to Los Angeles to kind of get back to normalcy.”

Syndergaard allowed six runs and seven hits in three innings against the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night, raising his ERA to 7.16.

Syndergaard (1-4) has surrendered at least five runs in three straight starts.

Syndergaard has been trying to return to the player he was before Tommy John surgery sidelined him for the better part of the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

Roberts said Syndergaard will need at least “a few weeks” to both heal and get away from baseball and “reset.”

“I think searching and not being comfortable with where he was at in the moment is certainly evident in performance,” Roberts said. “So hopefully this time away will provide more clarity on who he is right now as a pitcher.

“Trying to perform when you’re searching at this level is extremely difficult. I applaud him from not running from it, but it’s still very difficult. Hopefully it can be a tale of two stories, two halves when he does come back.”