At the time Lance was up, I was pretty on the fence. I was much more pro counting stats at the time. My evaluation has changed somewhat. I now prefer guys who truly excelled at something valuable for a regular prime, not guys who were good enough for long enough. Lance's offensive through his career, and especially from 01-08 was ridiculous.
01-08
5269 PA
150 wRC+
.980 OPS
44.4 WAR
Take the last 8 seasons of baseball. Who can match that?
Min 3000 PA
Trout - 173, 1.025, 46.6
Judge - 165, 0.982, 41.8
Soto - 154, 0.946, 28.4
Freeman - 149, 0.946, 43.5
Altuve - 144, 0.887, 40.4
That's a pretty elite group and only Freeman is close in PA. The top 3 aren't even close to 4000 PA.
I think all 5 of those guys are locks assuming no one falls off a cliff. Lance matched (topped?) the best of the best today and added another 4 strong seasons and 3 partial okay seasons.
A stat I wish would gain more popularity is RE24. It basically tell you how many runs you created above or below Avg. It give context to what you did instead of grading a solo HR in the 7th of a blowout vs a grand slam in the 11th down 3 as the same.
Lance is 555.13 in his career, 453.56 for the 01-08 prime. To put that into context, Berkman's career (shorter than most) is ahead of Tony Gwynn, Freddie Freeman, Larry Walker, Ken Griffey Jr, Eddie Murray, Fred McGriff, Edgar Martinez, Rafael Palmer, Tim Raines, Mike Piazza, Paul Goldschmidt, Dave Winfield, Vlad Guerrero, Paul Molitor, Derek Jeter, Craig Biggio, Joe Morgan, Rod Carew, Reggie Jackson, and I could keep going. 51 non PITCHERS are in the HOF since this stat started being tracked. Berkman would be ahead of all but 8 of them - Frank Thomas, Chipper, Baggy, Henderson, Thome, Schmidt, Ortiz, & Brett.