He might have had a HOF caliber career if you exclude his numbers from 1998 on. But well before? Not a chance. Going into the 1996 season he only had 277 HR's on his career. For a power hitter, those aren't HOF numbers. Going into his 1998 he had just 387 HR's. Still not HOF numbers for a power hitter. Well obviously if you take his career numbers at that point they don't stack up. Point is that he had OPS+'s of 164, 134, 130, 143, 175, 224, 137, 200, and 223 all before he went to St. Louis. It's not like he was a middling slugger before he broke the record.