Former St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Larry Walker elected to Hall of Fame

It may have been a brief stop in his career, but former St. Louis Cardinals’ outfielder Larry Walker has been elected to the Hall of Fame. Let’s remember his time in Cardinal red.

When someone mentions the name Larry Walker, the St. Louis Cardinals probably aren’t the team people imagine him with. However, Larry Walker did grace the Birds on the Bat and on Wednesday was given the honor of being inducted into the National Hall of Fame.

This induction really was a photo-finish for Walker as this year was the 53-year-old’s last year on the ballot.

After receiving less than 20% of the vote from 2014 to 2016, Walker jumped up in 2017 and 2018 then sat at 54.6% of ballots last year. Multiple projections had Walker just narrowly missing the necessary 75% of the ballot to get in, but he ended up at 76.6%.

It may have been significantly less than the 99.7% that Derek Jeter received, but at the end of the day they will both be eternally enshrined.

In Walker’s entire 17-year career, he spent 144 games with the Cardinals but played an integral part of two huge seasons for the team and his time with the Cardinals may have played a large part in his induction.

After starting his career with the Expos, Walker moved to Colorado where he spent the middle 10 years of his career. Winning the MVP in 1997, Walker had a Colorado career slash line of .334/.426/.618 slash line which was good for a 1.044 OPS. Walker averaged an 147 OPS+, 26 homers and 85 RBIs per season with the Rockies.

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This was certainly a Hall of Fame-worthy slash line, but given that he was playing in Colorado, many people argued that outside of the state Walker wouldn’t have been as good. That is where the Cardinals come in.

In 2004, Walker was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals at the age of 37, in his 16th season in the league. In both the end of 2004 and into 2005, Walker went on to bat for a .286/.387/.520 slash line in his season and a half in St. Louis which was good for a .907 OPS which was better than the .839 OPS he had in his first six seasons in the league with the Expos.

Both of those seasons were at the age of 37 and 38 and all but proved that Walker was the real deal, altitude or not. Sure, it helped that in 2004 Walker was in a lineup with the “MV3,” but Walker played a big role in the Cardinals’ deep playoff runs in both 2004 and 2005.

In all, Walker’s final two seasons proved that Coors Field wasn’t the only reason for his Hall of Fame-worthy numbers. Walker’s career 140 wRC+ and 68.7 fWAR put him in the Hall of Fame range even though he didn’t hit the 3,000 hit/500 homer milestones.

Walker has already announced that he will be going into the Hall in a Rockies hat (even though it isn’t his decision) which makes sense. He played the majority of his career in Colorado and had his best years there. However, he was still a St. Louis Cardinal and he deserves recognition from the fans here.