The other interesting part of the Travis story is that he not only missed several years because of WW II but he really was never the same afterwards because he suffered frostbite and had part of his foot amputated. So he was out of baseball by age 33. Still, in my book, Addie Joss to the contrary nothwithstanding, you don't make the Hall of Fame based on what might have been. And the voters agree -- I don't think he has ever garnered any significant votes. But maybe the Hall should open a what might have been wing.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pl...ravice01.shtml
To answer your question Kenny, he might have been injured, his stats might have taken a nosedive for whatever reason (I bet we could come up with a number of examples of guys whose careers nosedived, off the top of my head Doc Gooden comes to mind who surely projected to a first round HOFer after 7 years; Jose Canseco might fit that bill; etc.). We just don't know. I wouldn't want to base HOF membership on projected performance.
__________________
My avatar is a sketch by my son who is an art school graduate. Some of his sketches and paintings are at
https://www.jamesspaethartwork.com/
He is available to do custom drawings in graphite, charcoal and other media. He also sells some of his works as note cards/greeting cards on Etsy under JamesSpaethArt.