Are you looking for guys who might someday get in or guys that aren't quite HOF material but might eventually slide in?
For expansion era I'd consider
Dwight Evans - Consistent hitter, but just below what might be considered HOF material. 385 HR .272 1384 Rbi. Likely more RBI if he'd been on weaker batting teams. And he had a fantastic arm for an outfielder. The number of bases/runs prevented would probably be pretty high if they could ever find a way to track it. Just someone nobody wanted to run on.
Jason Varitek - Again, he'd be weak as a HOF candidate based purely on batting, and he was not much of a hitter his last 3-4 years. But he has more no hitters than any other catcher, and was a very solid leader on the field, and was popular with the fans.
Jim Thome - Still active I think. 612 HR in any era but the recent one would be first ballot. No implications or accusations so far. Not sure how the stigma of the era will affect him or that he's always been a somewhat low key sort of guy.
Other eras are tough for me, I didn't see the guys play so it's hard to pick a player just on stats. The couple that come to mind are Joe Wood and Nap Rucker. Both had fairly short careers, typical of hard throwers who were overused. Rucker was very good on a bad team which Must have hurt some of his numbers.
There are also loads of players who were the best of a decade or random 10 year stretch but didn't put up HOF type numbers overall.
Steve B
Steve B
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