Over at Hardball Talk, Craig Calcaterra attempts to come up with the greatest living player for all 30 franchises. His take on all 30 teams is done on gut selections, but most appear to be good. All of his NL West players would be hard to argue: Willie Mays for the Giants, Sandy Koufax or Steve Garvey for the Dodgers, Tony Gwynn for the Padres and Randy Johnson for the Diamondbacks.
And for the Rockies: Todd Helton, and as Calcaterra ponders, "[he] may be the most boring Greatest Living Player for any team." I don't know. Sure, Helton isn't the "let me get in your face, media" person, but does that make him boring?
Based on some of the players Calcaterra picks, I disagree. Jeff Conine screams boring to me, and even if he still is "Mr. Marlin," the people of Miami are well beyond the Marlins now.
Livan Hernandez for the Nationals? Well, I guess. If Stephen Strasburg didn't need Tommy John surgery I'd have made a bold pick there. Guess we'll need to wait for Bryce Harper to start mashing at the major league level.
Tim Salmon for the Angels if Jim Edmonds is disqualified? Yikes! indeed.
Todd Helton does seem to be the easy choice for the Rockies. He has the highest career bWAR (Baseball Reference's Wins Above Replacement Level) at 57.9, 13.8 better than Larry Walker's second-place 44.1. Down the line, Troy Tulowitzki will challenge Helton's spot in this conversation, but with only four full seasons in the league he still has ways to go.