Hall of Awesome - Albert Belle

It's definitely a worthwhile argument.  Personally, I prefer a high peak to a career of aggregating.  To me, all things being equal, I'd rather have Albert Belle than Andrew Dawson.  

It's where you draw that line is where it can become really murky.  You mentioned JR Richard yesterday.  Richard had a 4.5 year run where he was one of the best starters in the NL.  I'm not saying put Richard in, but what's the cutoff? A great 8 years? 7 years? Koufax is in (rightfully so) based on basically a 5-year stretch that is arguably the best stretch any pitcher has ever had.  What about someone who was just a tick under that? 

I think it's impossible to set defined criteria so we take everyone on a case-by-case basis.  It's the only way it makes sense, but where you have borderline guys like Belle, it makes for compelling discussion.