When he left the Rays, he had a real chance to make the big Hall of Fame in Cooperstown (35 WAR banked, not yet 30 years old, coming off back-to-back seasons of posting his highest season WAR)...and offered so little from that point on that he couldn't muster a single vote.

He's an excellent choice for this honor.

Finally, the Rays induct someone actually identified with the franchise.

When he left the Rays, he had a real chance to make the big Hall of Fame in Cooperstown (35 WAR banked, not yet 30 years old, coming off back-to-back seasons of posting his highest season WAR)...and offered so little from that point on that he couldn't muster a single vote.

I don't think anybody would have guessed that the rest of his career would be so lacking, but I don't know about that. As a realistic, electoral proposition, a lot of that came from excellent baserunning -- not that that doesn't deserve consideration, but it doesn't get it without gaudy career steals totals a la Rickey and Raines. I think it would have had to be a Beltre-type thing, where he barely aged and stuck around to get a ton of hits.

I agree with #4 but he is "closer" than I thought. Most borderline candidates have a 10-year run around 50 WAR then, the ones who becaome borderline candidates add some decent seasons and enough of those can push you over. From 22-28, Crawford had 32 WAR, coming off a 7-WAR season and, except for one bad year, usually around 4.5-5. So three more years like that and he might have been at least around 45.

Or if you take his 22-28 and double it, you roughly get Kenny Lofton ... who of course didn't make it but, numbers wise, wasn't far from Raines. Most intriguingly, if he could have doubled that plus added in his age 20-21 time, he'd be entering his age 36 season with about 2700 hits and maybe 750 steals and he starts to look like Lou Brock without the fame and records but with heaps more WAR and with a decent shot to hang around for 3000 hits. That would have had him about 300 hits ahead of Johnny Damon at the same age and Damon added about 300 more.

Of course maintaining that prime for another 7 years was never likely. But if he'd done it then the writers would get a second chance at Lou Whitaker so at least we'd know whether they'd vote him in now. Still, Longoria had a better shot at the HoF when he left Tampa and he had his 10/50 by then. If he'd managed to remain a 3-WAR player for another 5 years, we'd be having an interesting discussion about him.

The Rays Hall of Fame is going to pretty much definitionally be a Hall of Guys Who Were Good Before Like Their Second Year of Arbitration.

He was certainly an exciting player: highish average, good fielder, great baserunner. Very much a "young player" skillset that unfortunately never turned over into hitting for much power or taking a walk. Interesting post-baseball career, he runs a record label and has feuded with Megan Thee Stallion.

Don Zimmer, Wade Boggs and Carl Crawford. That's a weird team hall of fame lineup

Haven't we all feuded with Megan Thee Stallion?

Even his cliff-dive was a little odd. He was terrible that first year in Boston and everybody seemed to agree he was toast. But over the next three seasons, in very limited playing time, he put up a 111 OPS+, right in line with his career ... creepy close in fact at 289/330/425 vs career 290/330/435. And 43-10 in steals in about 1.5 seasons of play. That was 4.5 WAR, 1.4 WAA and 3 WAR/650. The defense had dropped to average but offensively, he was still Crawford. So at 32, he had 2.4 WAR in just 370 PA for LA -- then was below replacement at 33 and 34.

His most similar hitter through ages 23 and 34 was Claudell Washington, with mostly Roberto Clemente (ages 26-29) and Lou Brock (31-33) in between.