Really turned it around and is now a sure-fire HOFer.

Good player. Not a Hall Of Famer.

Good player. Not a Hall Of Famer.

Yup. No one was even talking about him approaching 3,000 hits until last week because no one even knew he was that close. With Inchiro last year everyone was talking about it all season.

The fact that he's no one's franchise player is a big strike against him. He wasted his prime with go-nowhere Mariners teams and then he was a mercenary for the Rangers, a rather mercenary organization itself. That's a great big whatever to me, just one of many very good players the Rangers spent a shit ton of their new TV money on. Jeff Bagwell always felt borderline to me but at least he was an Astro through and through.

Okay, subtracting the sentimentality of a sentimental game, a lot of his numbers are empty. Is that better?

Some arguments against:

No MVP awards
Only 4 All-Star games in 20 years (the first one came in his 13th year)

How valid is that argument when the year he hit 48 home runs and finished second in MVP he did not make the all star game?

Not really. He had a great first half as well but his second half was just insane The first half should have definitely resulted in an all star selection considering his greatness on defense as well. His first half numbers that year were:

315/355/580 with 22 home runs and 56 rbis

I don't dislike Adrian Beltre, I just don't associate him with the household names of 2000s-2010s baseball. Maybe I'm just a bad baseball fan, I don't know.

EDIT: I do remember Beltre powering the Dodgers into the playoffs in 2004 but then he was in a baseball backwater for the next five years.

Rebuilt himself kind of under the radar, but he's been consistent. Good glove, too. Maybe if the Rangers had gone farther in the playoffs....

Let's share our favorite Adrian Beltre memories.

Sarcasm? He was the best hitter on the 2011 World Series team

Game 5 WS home run. Had just gotten out of the Army and was watching in a bar in Fort Worth

he's definitely a name that doesn't come out and grab you, but as time goes on, the HOF will compile more names. so guys like him will wind up going in.

what i'm really interested in is how pitchers will be considered in future years. 300 wins is pretty much extinct, and ERA might not factor in as much either. a lot of starting pitchers don't have a lot of staying power. like running backs in the NFL.