I guess I could see it. He started young at 21 and through age 28 in 2015, he had 208 career dingers. He was a longshot, to be sure, but it wasn't implausible.

Nothing quite like going to the Mets to crush your Cooperstown chances.

His first trial with New York in 2016 was a total disappointment, but thankfully he only cost us Dilson Herrera and minor leaguer Max Wotell. His sophomore campaign was okay, but they sent him packing in August for minor leaguer Ryder Ryan, who by the way isn't even in their system anymore. Why trade him just to re-sign him I'll never understand, but that's just what they did and he tanked in 2018 just to be traded away again and for good following the season. And by 2021, he had retired from baseball.

So Bruce went from "hey, he might be a Hall of Famer" to out of baseball after just parts of three seasons and 247 games with the Mets. And it was, unequivocally, his time with New York that killed his career.

We have a way of ruining good things when we get them, don't we? Johan Santana, Pedro Martinez, Jay Bruce ...

However, I will always remember how, before the 2008 season, during a fantasy baseball draft in a keeper league, my good friend drafted Jay Bruce (who was still in the minors) in the late rounds, thinking he was going to be a "keeper" and we all thought he was crazy. It was memorable and funny because of the way he said "JAAAAAY BRUUUUUUCE" all cocky-like, thinking he was really smart in drafting him.

By the way, Alex, guess who Bruuuce's #1 similarity score match on baseballreference is: Jeromy Burnitz. Accurate, right? Even considering that Harold Baines made the Hall of Fame, even then, a fish would ride a bicycle before Jay Bruce had any chance of being a future Hall of Famer at any point in his career. Bruce hitting 500 home runs? Only faintly possible in a bygone era (1986-2005). He was never a player who was once great, not even close to the way the post-1980 version of Dave Kingman or George Foster after 1981 once were. He was better on the Mets than Jason Bay was; I'll give you that. But guess what: Jason Bay's career Wins Above Replacement is 24.8, while Jay Bruce's career WAR is 19.9, good for a tie for 954th best (tied with Burnitz) of all-time.

As a comp, Harold Baines' career WAR is 38.8. Darryl Strawberry's career WAR was 42.2, and the average HOF right fielder has an average WAR threshold of 71.1, (according to baseballreference.com).

But hey, in defense of the fan who posited that suggestion, in 1988 I was convinced that Gregg Jefferies was a future Hall of Famer. Maybe whoever wrote that was a precocious child who lived in Cincinnati.

Also, he signed an autograph for me through the mail in 2008, when he was in the Reds minor league system. He's never been much of a signer, but I got lucky. Then I tried him again in 2010, and he didn't respond.