Aaron Judge, Munetaka Murakami are early leaders in MLB's HR race

Let’s get this out of the way first before anyone starts screenshotting leaderboards in April and acting like history is about to be made.

The odds are not in their favor.

They are not going to keep this up. Someone is going to cool off. Someone is going to miss time. Someone is going to hit that two-week stretch where everything turns into a lazy fly ball to right field. That is how a baseball season works.

But about a month into the season, there is something fun happening.

A handful of hitters are posting home run rates that, if you stretched them out over a full season, would land in territory usually only discussed in MVP debates and record books. According to the most recent data from MLB.com, several players are off to power starts that at least make you stop and do the math. 

And if everything went perfectly, no slumps, no injuries, no regression, here is where a few of those names could end up.

A look at the 60+ HR club if everyone keeps their pace

Let's start with New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, because you almost have to. He has been here before, and when he gets going, it tends to look different than everyone else. His current rate of 12 home runs in 31 games puts him on a ridiculous pace that would put him at 63 home runs. That alone is enough to make people pay attention, even if nobody is expecting him to actually stay there for six months.

Then there's Munetaka Murakami; he wasted absolutely zero time announcing himself to the league. He is right there with Judge with identical stats to date. Murakami has shown early-season power production for the Chicago White Sox, and despite some questions about how his all-around game will hold up across a full year, there are clearly no power concerns.

Perhaps the most intriguing name of the bunch is Yordan Alvarez, who has 11 home runs in 30 games played. The Houston Astros' power hitter is not just hitting for power. He is doing it all. Batting average, on-base percentage, slugging and then the homers. The dingers are only a part of his offensive output. The only thing working against Alvarez here is how hard that kind of pace is to sustain. When you’re talking about a 60 home run trajectory, even a slight dip brings it back to earth. 

Reality will rear its ugly head

The biggest power threats in baseball experience downturns and slowdowns. Pitchers make adjustments. Weather changes. They lose timing. It adds up over the course of 162 games.

This is why only 60-home run seasons occur once in a great while. They are not about having hot spells; they are about avoiding cold ones entirely.

That does not mean there is no reason to tune in.

For a month (or more), we can look at the numbers and dream of what it would look like if things kept going, completely uninterrupted by slowing down or cold spells. This is a straight line between April and October.

Even if it is never reality, the possibility is what makes baseball what it is.