Any case for Keith Hernandez for the hall will be, and should be, controversial, because he's a marginal candidate, and marginal candidates are, almost by definition, controversial. He's tied for 187th in career WAR, surrounded by lower-tier hall of famers, and good non-hall of famers. He's exactly tied with Dazzy Vance, and right around the same level as Bobby Abreu, Vlad Guerrero, Jim Edmonds, and Zach Wheat. Is Zach Wheat a deserving hall of famers? My answer is: sure, but if they had left him out I wouldn't have missed any sleep over it. (Or probably even have noticed.) That's Hernandez' company. Guys on the borderline of the hall, in both directions, who pretty much can't (because they're borderline) have strong arguments either in their favor or against them.
Insofar as Hernandez does have a case, defense is an essential part of it. Gold gloves are a poor measure of defense, as the recently cited Palmeiro GG illustrates. The statistic you want to use to measure defense is Rfield. Hernandez has a career score of 117, meaning that he saved 117 runs more than an average first baseman. Mattingley has a career Rfield of 33. Now, before we get carried away, let's remember that these guys play first base. And while defense is important no matter where you play, there are only so many opportunities for first basemen to make important plays. (Ozzie Smith's number, for comparison, is 239.) Still, 117 runs saved is very good. It's a little below Omar Vizquel (who was, of course, a shortstop).
Baseball-Reference doesn't seem to have career leaderboards for Rfield, but they do have Total Zone, which is the next best thing. And Hernandez is the all-time leader in Total Zone Runs Saved for first basemen. (N.B. this statistic only goes back to 1953, the data it's based on wasn't collected before that time.) Todd Helton is #2, 13 runs behind. Don Mattingley is 31st. Good, but not an all-time leader.
(Technical note: all first basemen will look terrible by dWAR, because dWAR contains a positional adjustment. Basically, they get penalized for playing a position that it's relatively easy to fill. Because of the positional adjustment, the leaderboard for dWAR is very heavy on shortstops and has no first basemen.)
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