I wouldn't say there was an immediate drop off in his numbers, any stranger than another player getting old. As a catcher for all of those years, his body was worn down and he got injured. He went from .300, to .280, to .286, and then stayed around there in his mid to late 30's. Home runs from 36, to 33, injury season, and then hovered around 20 with decreasing at bats. It's not like he went from 55 to 14 over a healthy offseason. Also, there is something to be said about hard work, for those arguing he was drafted as a favor. I mean, for a lot of athletes, that's the motivation you need to prove people wrong and work harder. Though I understand you're just playing devil's advocate.
It's just disappointing to see the writer's make an attempt at erasing an entire era's players from the history books, and not enshrining any of them, clean or not, suspected or not, implicated or not. It's not even an innocent until proven guilty thing, they're just claiming everyone guilty. I don't know. I'm sure I'll get over it soon enough, but as of right now, the HOF is completely irrelevant to me until the players that deserve to be there are in.
If you like peanut butter, then you like dogs. The two are completely unrelated. I agree that Pete should be in, but the situations are entirely separate from one another.