>even if one resigns to saying hunter was merely the best CF
>in one league (the AL) over a ten-year period rather than MLB,
>jones had a steep decline and beltran had more than his share
>of injuries after his early 30s, too.

Well Jones was the best CF in the NL over a ten-year period (actually in all of MLB but let's just stick to the one-league thing here), so by your argument that makes him HOF worthy, no? His Dale Murphy-esque fall off a cliff promptly following that will hurt him with HOF voters, but a decade-long run as a HOF caliber player should certainly make him worthy of induction.

Beltran had his injury issues in his early 30s but bounced back nicely his last year in NY when they traded him to SF + the next couple seasons in St Louis. And as I mentioned previously his career #'s are better than Hunter's across the board.


>we are talking HOF potential, no?

yes: baseball-ref HOF monitor (Likely HOFer ≈ 100)

A.Jones: 109
Beltran: 104
Hunter: 58

A.Jones: 62.8 career WAR/46.4 7yr-peak WAR/54.6 JAWS
Beltran: 67.3 career WAR/44.3 7yr-peak WAR/55.8 JAWS
Hunter: 50.5 career WAR/31.2 7yr-peak WAR/40.9 JAWS

Avg HOF CF: 70.4 career WAR/44.0 7yr-peak WAR/57.2 JAWS
(out of 18)

Center Field JAWS Leaders:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_CF.shtml

Beltran: 8th all-time
A.Jones: 10th all-time
Hunter: 30th all-time

Beltran and Jones are pretty solidly HOF caliber. Hunter has had a terrific career but he's not quite there.

>and i think being the best in one league for a ten year period
>is at least worth a look. for example i'd look at omar vizquel
>for that same reason.

oh yeah he's worth consideration, like walleye said hopefully he gets enough votes to stay on the ballot for several years and engender conversation about what a terrific career he's had. I'm all for that.