re: What are some notable baseball careers that started off HOF worthy only to derail badly.

I really wanna say Adam Wainwright.

Bulldozed as a reliever in the playoffs as a rookie en-route to helping clinch a WS title.

4 top 3 finishes in CYA and likely would have at least one, or two, if not a split vote one year with Carpenter and Kershaw and Lincecum years.

Had a 1.61 ERA in 4 starts in 2015 before he blew out his Achilles stumbling out of the box.

Never been close to the same pitcher since. That LE injury just robbed him of speed on his fastball and his pitches had considerably less bite.

Would he have kept up the pace had he not gotten injured in 15? I dunno. But between COVID and the Achilles I think he lost about 50 potential wins which would put him around 218 in his career at this point.

I mean...

His peripheral numbers prior to 15 were getting better. He had a streak of 19, 20, 14, 19, 20 win seasons with 19 CG at the time. You could argue he was the best RhP in the NL during that time.