Afternoon Baseball

ESPN.com -- Walker says he's done playing after NLCS loss

If in fact Larry Walker retires, he does so as a .313 hitter with 383 homers to go along with 230 stolen bases. He also has seven Gold Gloves. But Walker also played exactly one season of 150 games. And, he played a large chunk of his career in Colorado, the mecca for hitters.

Walker hit .313/.400/.565 in his career spanning from 1989-2005. The slugging is 16th in history and his .965 OPS is 19th. His adjusted OPS is only 78th, however. As for his benefiting from Coors Field (and Mile High Stadium before that) He played his age 28 through age 37 years in Colorado, so an allowance can be made for a higher home vs. road average because those were most of his peak years. But still...
look at the numbers:

With Montreal (1989-1994), overall: 674 games, .281/.357/.483, 23.9 AB/HR
Home: 319 games, .286/.364/.500, 23.13 AB/HR
Road: 355 games, .278/.350/.468 24.60 AB/HR

Better hitter at home, but not by much. Certainly reasonable. Not his peak years, either, but he did have a monster 1994.

Colorado (1995-August 5, 2004): 1170 games, .334/.426/.618, 15.8 AB/HR
Home: 592 games, 555-2117, 284 BB .384/.464/.715, 13.75 AB/HR
Road: 578 games, .280/.385/.514, 18.54 AB/HR

So, Walker was essentially the same player on the road throughout his career, with a natural small uptick during his Colorado years, as those were his peak age years. However, his home average during that time completely distorts his career.
Let's give his home numbers the same percentage increase over his road numbers that his ratio was as an Expo (dealing strictly with the numeric figures, not accounting for the difference in plate appearances, etc.).
They come out like this:

Colorado home (corrected): .288/.400/.549, 17.43 AB/HR

Without doing all the math, this clearly puts him below a .300 batting average and below a .950 OPS. Still a very solid career, but not something of greatness as it appears on paper.

One thing that cannot be taken away, of course, is his fielding and baserunning. Cannon arm and good range, with good instincts in both respects.