I think with Kent its going to come down to intangibles. Sandberg had them in the fact that he was a dominating force and a clutch player. Kent is a cracker and I don't like him either, but his numbers are very good. But you also need to figure in the era he's played in...between steroids, juiced balls, and expansion those numbers are inflated, as are the numbers of many players from the last 15 years.
I'd like to see a conversion method figured out to translate the stats between eras into something universal. I know its not possible, but it would be nice.
On another note, I was looking over the list of all the players in the HoF for MLB. Its not as many as I thought, but there are people in there that I don't think belong there based on "intangible" stuff...as in, when you say their name do you think "great player"? Which is what your point was pretty much, so we're on the same page there at least. I mean really...Dave Winfield? Here's the list:
http://baseball-almanac.com/hof/hofmem.shtml
I also PMed you the names to the above players. I'll give it a day or so and let some others look at it before I put names with the stats.