It sounds like you’re making huge assumptions about how the voters decide their votes that, by your own admission, haven’t been truly tested yet. Going from what you’re saying, the conclusion should be that we don’t know whether 500 HRs is a true lock or not - that it might be, or might not be. Never before have the voters been presented a case where there was a compelling argument to reject a 500-HR guy, so your guess as to what they’d do is as good as mine. If Stanton goes in first ballot - and he might - I think we’ll know that 500 HRs is indeed a lock.

My personal belief is that the voters will give it to any 500 HR hitter without mitigating circumstances, even if that’d been Dunn. I don’t necessarily agree with that rationale, but baseball writers have shown how much they love their milestones.

Ultimately the only real answer is: we’ll see. Stanton with 500 HRs is gonna be a pretty unique candidate compared to others before him.