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A few hours after Jim Thome hit his 499th home run, I happened to find myself sitting at a table with seven serious (or semi-serious) baseball fans. So I asked each of them, "Is Thome a Hall of Famer?"

Five said yes, two said no. Five out of seven is 71 percent; if this had been an official Hall vote, Thome would have fallen just 4 percent short. Now, you might think this means nothing, because of course my "voters" didn't have any evidence at hand, and in fact I asked them to respond without thinking about it.

But it does mean something, because some significant percentage of the real voters evaluate Hall of Fame candidates exactly that way. No, I don't mean to suggest that the voters don't think about each player. They do. By the time a player has reached Thome's age -- he turned 37 a few weeks ago -- most of the voters have done a lot of thinking over the years, and they've come to a conclusion. Which isn't to say they don't change their minds. Sometimes they do. We're talking about now, though. Realistically.

So what do the Hall of Fame voters of the future think about Thome right now? For an idea, we can look at how he's fared in the MVP balloting over the years.

Thome has never won an MVP Award. He's never come close. He does have four top-10 MVP finishes: a fourth, a sixth and two sevenths. This constitutes a real problem for his candidacy. Thome has been an RBI man with a number of good teams, and MVP voters typically reward that sort of player. MVP voters essentially are a subset of Hall of Fame voters. If they don't appreciate him while he's playing, will they appreciate him when he's eligible for the Hall?

Only six post-1950 first basemen have been elected to the Hall of Fame. Here's a simple representation of how each fared during his career in MVP balloting, counting only top-nine finishes through the years:

Post-1950 HOF 1B
PLAYER	MVP FINISH
Harmon Killebrew	1-2-3-3-4-4
Eddie Murray	2-2-4-5-5-5-6
Rod Carew	1-4-5-7-9
Willie McCovey	1-3-9
Orlando Cepeda	1-2-9
Tony Perez	3-7-8

As you can see, four of the Hall of Fame first basemen won the award once, and all of them finished as high as third at least once.

Next, my first tier of Hall of Fame candidates at first base; these two players clearly have established themselves as favorites in the minds of the MVP/Hall of Fame voters.

FIRST TIER OF 1B HOF CANDIDATES
PLAYER	MVP FINISH
Frank Thomas	1-1-2-3-3-4-8-8-8
Jeff Bagwell	1-2-3-7-7-9

For those who think Bagwell is going to have problems getting into the Hall of Fame, it's worth noting that he looks very good here relative to his peers at first base. And Frank Thomas blows everybody out of the water, with the caveat that he's actually logged more games as a DH than as a first baseman. Of course, as we've seen with McGwire, the steroids issue means nobody's a sure thing. But absent performance-enhancing drugs, we can figure that both of these guys will cruise right into the Hall.

Next, the second tier. These guys all were MVPs and put up big numbers, but in abbreviated careers.

SECOND TIER OF 1B HOF CANDIDATES
PLAYER	MVP FINISH
Keith Hernandez	1-2-4-8
Don Mattingly	1-2-5-7
Jason Giambi	1-2-5-8

Quite a coincidence, how closely these New York first basemen match in the MVP balloting. All three were great players in their times, each with first- and second-place finishes in the voting, and all three suffered debilitating injuries that severely impacted their Hall of Fame chances (Giambi has had some other issues, of course).

Here's the third tier:

THIRD TIER OF 1B HOF CANDIDATES
PLAYER	MVP FINISH
Mark McGwire	2-4-5-6-7
Will Clark	2-4-5-5
Jim Thome	4-6-7-7
Fred McGriff	4-6-6-8

None of the players in the second tier is likely to become a Hall of Famer, and here's Thome in the third tier. Which doesn't bode well for his chances, obviously. And he doesn't match up with Clark and McGriff in MVP votes.

And finally, our fourth tier, completing the list of post-1950 first basemen who have been seriously discussed as Hall of Fame candidates (or who deserve to be).

FOURTH TIER OF 1B HOF CANDIDATES
PLAYER	MVP FINISH
Carlos Delgado	2-4-6
Todd Helton	5-7-9
Rafael Palmeiro	5-6-8
Gil Hodges	7-8

Carlos Delgado has been a great hitter for a long time. But did you know that he's been an All-Star only twice? As things stand now, I believe he'll have a difficult time getting elected. He's only 35 and has time to build his counting stats. He'll need to. Helton's candidacy is hurt by all those years with losing teams and by the stigma that comes with playing all those games in Coors Field. He needs to pile up those counting stats, too.

Hodges doesn't stack up, but he has always benefited from his association with the '69 Mets. And Palmeiro? Despite the poor showing in MVP voting, he probably was close to a lock before he got busted for steroids. But that's because he cleared 3,000 hits, which has always been an automatic qualifier (notwithstanding suspension-worthy offenses).

Looking at the first basemen who are in the Hall of Fame, only Tony Perez has anything like Thome's "MVP profile" -- no award, no finish better than third, not many top 10s -- and Perez benefited from a halo effect that comes with having been a key component of the Big Red Machine (and even then, it took him nine years to get elected).

So in a sense, the Hall of Fame voters -- in the guise of MVP voters -- already have passed judgment on Thome, and they have found him wanting. Can he change their minds? Certainly. Just as Palmeiro turned into a likely Hall of Famer by collecting his 3,000th hit, Thome can become one by hitting 600 home runs. But 500's not going to be nearly enough.

So Thome has not, today, done enough to be elected. Realistically, that is. But what about idealistically? Does he deserve to be elected, based on the merits of his case? Well, as Mickey Mantle once told Congress, "My views are just about the same as Casey's."

Rob Neyer writes for ESPN Insider and regularly updates his blog for ESPN.com. You can reach him via rob.neyer@dig.com. His most recent book ("Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders") is available everywhere.