David Wright’s Hall of Fame case, like his playing career, is largely overshadowed by questions of what could have been. But bad luck doesn’t tell his entire story, which is why he wasn’t one-and-done on the ballot.

One of the best third basemen of his era in his nine-year prime, Wright was a seven-time All-Star, took home two Gold Gloves and two Silver Slugger Awards, put up a few strong National League MVP cases and led an oft-maligned club in a major media market before having his momentum slowed by injuries. His body of work was short, but it certainly wasn’t lacking.

As Wright heads into his second year on the Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot, here’s a look at six reasons why he belongs in the Hall of Fame.

1. Wright stacks up better than you think
Through no fault of his own, Wright appears to be fighting an uphill battle here. But looking strictly at his performance, his odds look pretty good. Wright had a career OPS+ of 133 over 1,585 games. Of the 96 players in AL/NL history who played at least 1,500 games and have an OPS+ of 133 or higher, 61 of them are in the Hall of Fame. Another nine are still active or are too recently retired to have hit the ballot yet, and three more (Todd Helton, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez and Gary Sheffield) are still on the ballot. That leaves less than a quarter of the group definitely out, and controversy surrounding alleged steroid use was the deciding factor for several more still. By that standard, Wright is already in.

2. Wright was among the best of his generation
In his prime, Wright was a certifiable superstar. From 2005-13, he averaged 145 games a year, with a .302/.384/.505 slash line and 23 home runs, 93 RBIs and 20 stolen bases per season. Wright’s numbers look just as good, if not better, when compared with the rest of the league; over those nine seasons, he ranked eighth in hits, seventh in runs scored, 10th in RBIs and sixth in doubles among all Major Leaguers, while making seven of nine NL All-Star teams and earning four top-10 finishes in the NL MVP Award voting.

3. Wright is still the face of a franchise
For expansion teams, even those that existed before free agency, true franchise players are hard to come by. The Mets have the same long record of icons acquired late or lost on the open market, doing nothing to diminish their legacies in New York but hurting their odds of being remembered later as the cornerstones of the franchise.

That context is pretty critical here. Before Wright, the Mets didn’t have another iconic player who never took the field in another uniform. His 1,585 games with the Mets are the second most in franchise history behind Ed Kranepool, and he ended his career holding the franchise record for hits, runs scored, total bases, doubles, RBIs, walks, sac flies and extra-base hits. All told, Wright has the highest fWAR for a Mets position player (51.2 fWAR), trailing only Tom Seaver and Dwight Gooden overall.

Consider, too, that the Mets have been good, and have had great players, since Wright’s prime. Even so, it’s hard to argue that any of them has really supplanted him as the main Met of the 21st century, especially considering how many of their journeys would eventually take them out of New York. After Wright, the best current Met by career fWAR is Brandon Nimmo, at 24.9 through his first nine seasons. Nimmo ranks eighth among Mets position players in career fWAR overall — 17th when counting pitchers. That was — and still is — something special, and that Wright remains that guy is a bigger deal than we might be giving him credit for.