Rafael Palmeiro Marquee

Twenty seasons gave him 3,020 hits, 569 home runs, 1,835 runs batted in and a .288 average across 2,831 games. Seven men in the history of the game have reached both 3,000 hits and 500 home runs: Aaron, Pujols, Rodriguez, Mays, Palmeiro, Cabrera and Murray. He won three Gold Gloves at first base.

He got there by accumulation rather than by peak. He led the American League in doubles once, in hits once and in runs once, and that is all the black ink in twenty years, with four All-Star selections. What he did instead was hit at least 38 home runs in nine consecutive seasons, from 1995 through 2003, and he was still hitting 38 at thirty-eight.

In March 2005 he told a congressional committee that he had never used steroids. He tested positive that August and was suspended. He played 110 games that season and never played again. The writers gave him 11 percent in 2011 and 4 percent in 2014, which is below the threshold and took him off the ballot. The Contemporary Era committee considered him once, in 2023.