He’s one I’m on the fence about (more so after reading Davidoff’s endorsement, really) and I’m open to being convinced either way.

But yeah, he’s definitely borderline. His career is near identical to Curt Schilling’s, minus the bloody sock b.s.

Mondesi loved showing off that throwing arm. Just loved it. And he could hit a ball very far, when he connected. Overall, though, he played as he lived: Undisciplined. No.

“He played as he lived” made me think Mondesi died and I missed it, and I actually had to go look and see whether he’s still alive or not. Turns out not only is he still alive, but he’s off to a successful start to a political career in the DR – earlier this year he was elected to a six-year term as the mayor of his hometown.

McGwire, Bagwell and McGriff never failed an official test. I can understand a voter taking that approach.

Unrelated, but Ken used all 10 available ballot spots, Palmeiro is conveivably 11th best behind those 10, regardless of PEDs.

because Kevin Brown is point blank, not a Hall of Famer.

Let’s start with the obvious – Walker put up some nice stats in Colorado, but who hasn’t. Even Dante Bichette looked like a good player while there. If you look at the splits though, it’s not so pretty for Larry. His career batting average is .313, but it was .334 in 10 seasons as a Rockie, and dropped to .283 in 8 seasons as a Cardinal and Expo. His career OPS of .965 looks great until you see that it was 1.044 in the thin mountain air, and a little over .850 in St Louis and Montreal.

He hit over .300 eight times with Colorado, including .350 or better four times. He only hit over .300 twice with Montreal, and never with St Louis – topping out at .322 in his last season with the Expos. He had an OPS over .900 nine times with the Rockies, topping 1.000 an incredible six times. He only had an OPS over .900 once in his other 8 seasons.

In 17 seasons, he only had 200 hits once, over 100 runs four times, over 30 HR’s four times, over 100 RBI five times and only had more than 65 BB’s four times. The biggest key to this obviously being the injuries, which is another strike against him. He only played 130 games or more in 10 of his 17 seasons, and over 140 games only FOUR TIMES in 17 years.

To his credit, he did finish with a career OPS+ of 140. He also reached double figures in stolen bases 11 times, played a solid rightfield with a laser for an arm and didn’t stike out much. He also had a career OBP of .400.

In the postseason, Walker was awful. He did have 4 extra base hits in his one (losing) World Series appearance, including 2 HR’s. But, other than that series, he had a career .210 BA in the postseason.

In closing, I think Larry Walker was a very good player. He always hustled, played the field well and never caused any trouble off the field. I myself find it hard to call him one of the best players of his generation though, due to the fact that his stats are so heavily skewed by playing in Colorado. I can see why some would consider him a borderline HOFer, for sure. Davidoff and many others in baseball feel he belongs. Time will tell.

There are many, many, many more deserving guys eligible.

60 WAR is the cutoff for an almost no question “yes.” I would vote no for people who were involved in scandals who had WARs higher than 60, and there are some case-by-case exceptions for players with lower WARs who were unquestionably exceptional.