The Replacements or Soul Asylum. In the case of The Replacements, Tom's output would lack the magic of the material that never achieved mainstream success and it would also have that awful 80's production sound. In the case of Soul Asylum, Tom would quickly fade back into obscurity after his moment in the sun. I second Wilco as a band of this description, but that would mean that Tom would eventually lose all of his collaborators through personality and artistic conflicts, except the bass player (which in this metaphor would be AP Mike?).
In any case, none of these stories have happy endings, unfortunately.