Quite a thread here. My responses to a number of topics:
Mariano Rivera is 100% a HOFer. He was dominant for his entire career and is the greatest to play his position. Ranking the relative worth of different positions is a slippery slope. Even if you aren't a fan of closers, the top few guys at each position deserve to be in - once you move beyond the top 1-2 players at each spot for the era I can understand arguing against certain positions. The fact that Mo wasn't a successful starter at 21 years of age should not be a factor - lots of young guys with 1-2 awesome pitches struggle until they find a third and there is no reason to suggest Mo wouldn't have developed another pitch to become a great starter.
I think the PEDers will get in eventually. Right now they are paying the price for cheating, and getting caught for many of them, which I think is 100% fair. They did everything they could to win games, just like guys from every era (as has been pointed out here by many). Once they are in people will always look at their numbers and say "yeah, but...", epecially following not getting elected for a number of years, which to me is enough. If you were the best during an era when everyone cheated you belong in - the alternative is having a 20-year strectch of baseball where the guys who were clearly the best players are not included in the group that is supposed to contain the best players.
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