Nice Guy Todd Helton Sees Increase In Baseball Hall Ballot

Former Colorado Rockies first basemen Todd Helton is known for being a standup guy, and apparently, when it comes to Baseball Hall of Fame voting, that counts for a lot. Some might even say too much.

Anyway, Helton was also a heck of a baseball player, and that also seems to count for a lot when it comes to the Hall. So it's no surprise that Helton has taken a major step toward induction, as relayed by Thomas Harding of MLB.com.

Helton spent his entire career with the Rockies (1997-2013) and was listed on 44.9 percent of the ballots distributed to the Baseball Writers Association of America. That's up 15.7 percent from last year, as Harding noted, marking the second highest increase of players on the ballot.

"It's always nice to have an increase -- still a long way to go,” Helton said, via Harding. “But you've got to look at it as a 10-year race, instead of just this year."

The BBWAA voted no one into the Hall this year. It's just the third time in history the organization pitched a shutout, and the first since 2013.

Players are elected to the Hall if they are named on at least 75 percent of ballots cast by members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. There were 401 ballots submitted in this year’s election, including a record total of 14 blanks. Candidates needed 301 votes to be elected.