No, there is no question. Also .511 career slugging and 356 homers is pretty good for a guy who got dinged throughout his career for not being enough of a power hitter.
Dinging him for RBIs in particular annoys me given how generally forgettable those Reds teams were. 21st in league OBP during his career, and that's counting the 8.3% of Reds PAs that were his. He has 42% of all Reds player seasons with a 120 or better wRC+ from 2007 to 2024.
absolutely should be a HoFer. resume of a guy who normally gets in after a few years but will get in on the first ballot because he seems like a great guy off the field and everyone likes him
I don't know anything about baseball and won't pretend to but one of my across the board sports rules is that if you ever won an MVP you should go in the Hall.
there are way more guys in baseball who just have randomly good seasons and win an MVP but did not have hall worthy careers in baseball than in other sports, since it gives out two MVP awards every year and has the hardest HoF to get into.
like in 2006, the two MVP winners were justin morneau (27 career wins above replacement) and ryan howard (15 career WAR) when the typical baseball HoFer has at least 55 career WAR
Will Clark had more hits, more runs, more rbis hit for a higher average -- didn't get past the first ballot. .333 playoffs, 1 WS
Steve fking Garvey (who I loathe) hit for the same average, was a 10 time all star, more RBIs, more gold gloves, actually made it to the World Series, actually won*
The Hall of Fame (and the sportswriter gatekeepers) are dumber than dogshit when it comes to the obvious so I won’t be holding my breath when he comes up for a vote.
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Steve fking Garvey (who I loathe) hit for the same average, was a 10 time all star, more RBIs, more gold gloves, actually made it to the World Series, actually won*