He's currently on pace for a 30/.300/100 season - hitting thirty homers, batting .300 and driving in a hundred runs. That's something which has only been done seven times by a player his age (or younger) in baseball history. Here's the list, along with the honors those players went on to accumulate:
| Player | Year | HR | BA | RBI | Age | Team | Honors |
| Albert Pujols | 2001 | 37 | .329 | 130 | 21 | STL | 8-time All-Star, 2 MVP |
| Alex Rodriguez | 1996 | 36 | .358 | 123 | 20 | SEA | 12-time All-Star, 3 MVP |
| Eddie Mathews | 1953 | 47 | .302 | 135 | 21 | MLN | 9-time All-Star, HOF |
| Ted Williams | 1939 | 31 | .327 | 145 | 20 | BOS | 17-time All-Star, 3 MVP, HOF |
| Hal Trosky | 1934 | 35 | .330 | 142 | 21 | CLE | |
| Mel Ott | 1929 | 42 | .328 | 151 | 20 | NYG | 11-time All-Star, HOF |
| Jimmie Foxx | 1929 | 33 | .354 | 118 | 21 | PHA | 9-time All-Star, 3 MVP, HOF |
Yeah, that's right. On average, those players have gone on to appear in ten All-Star games [and it'd have been more for Ott and Foxx, had the game been about when they started], win an MVP award, and 80% of them make it into Cooperstown when they retire. Trosky is a curious exception. He was never higher than 10th in the MVP voting, even in 1936 when he hit .343 with 42 homers, 162 RBI and an OPS of 1.026 [some guy no-one has ever heard of, called "Lou Gehrig", won it that season...]. However, his career was cut short by a combination of migraine issues and World War II, and he only played 312 games after his age-27 season in 1940.
Let's hope Upton's career follows one of the other paths, and I am not saying he is a Cooperstown lock. But it's an astonishing list which he might join, and we should absorb this season with the sense of potential history unfolding that it deserves. Imagine being able to tell your kids that you saw Ted Williams develop into his prime. That is the kind of potential Upton is showing us this season. Enjoy it, folks...