I was tooling around B-Ref this morning and this really piqued my curiosity. Helton is listed as Votto's top comp by age, but age comps aren't always that exciting (for instance, Johnny Cueto's top comp is Scott Scudder. Yuck). But I compared Votto's first year+ to Helton's, and the eerie similarities are enough to write a good Goosebumps novel.
Helton had a cuppa in '97, playing 35 games as a 23 year old: Votto came up in '07, playing 24 games as a 23 year old. They both followed that up with stellar rookie years as 24 year olds, both placing second in NL ROY voting, both losing the award to a Cub.
Not convinced yet? Check out their batting lines through their age 24 seasons:
OPS+ AVG OBP SLG 2B 3B HR R RBI
Votto 124 .300 .367 .511 39 3 28 80 101
Helton 116 .310 .374 .523 39 2 30 91 108
Spooky, huh?


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