The last of the Killer B's to become eligible

I expect Berkman to slot in in the 3-5 range on my ballot. His bat looks at least as good, if not better than Vlad. Good first baseman and a decent outfield in his younger years. Adequate baserunner.

Shorter career but he was an elite hitter for nearly all of it.

Lance Berkman might have a hill to climb with the default setting often being Baseball-Reference context neutral WAR, where he falls a bit shy/borderline of HOM level (99.5 rating at Adam Darowski's Hall of Stats).

Baseball Reference at 51.7 WAR, 38.9 WAR7
Baseball Gauge at 53.9 WAR, 38.5 WAR7
Kiko's W-L at 32.8 2/3 p, 1/3 e wins, ~57 translated WAR.

He adds ~ 2 WAR and 1 championship probability (cWPA) in his illustrious post-season career.

Contextual measures:
Neutral 468 runs, 565 RE24, or ~8.5 wins; +1.6 clutch score.

Lance will be in the running for a lower third ballot spot and is personal hall of merit.

If you like postseason credit, Berkman should come in for some of that. By Championship Probability Added (WPA weighted for game importance), he is third all-time among hitters, trailing only Mantle and Rose. (You can take or leave the specific metric as you will, but he was really good in October either way; he just did it in a way that seems to have almost been designed to avoid notice.)

I've written about Berkman's October heroics in a few threads around these parts but am having trouble finding one now, so I'll link this instead:

Lance Berkman: Stealth October Superstar