Harold Baines - He was a good hitter for a long time but never had a group of breakout seasons that defines a great player. In a 20 year career he only topped 100 rbi's 1 time, never hit 30 HR's in a season, only once hit more than 30 2b's, never scored 100 runs and only one time was in the top ten in MVP voting and he was 9th that year. Also never achived career milestones like 3000 hits or 400 Hr's. Hard to make a real case for him.
†Jay Bell- Underrated player but not nearly HoF caliber
Bert Blyleven He is the perfect example of a player that played for a lot of average to poor teams for the majority of his career which unduly influenced his W/L record. His career 3.31 era is outstanding especially he pitched his 2 worst years at age 40 and 41 which added 260 pretty ordinary innings to his total. He won 287 games but if the stats are normalized to standard 715 run season (baseball-reference) his win/loss totals out to 325-227 showing explicitly how poor his teams were. Not to mention that he pitched in an era where he had to finish games as he pitched 242 complete games. He his K to BB ratio was 3-1 which is outstanding and he was in the top 10 in era 10 times, top 10 in wins 6 times, top 10 in k's 15 times, top 10 in CG 12 times, top 10 in shutouts 10 times, not to mention a 4-1 with a 2.87 postseason record where he won 2 rings. He belongs.
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