As Tim Kurkjian writes in his column today, Chipper Jones is a unique player. Not only has he starred for the team that drafted him No. 1 overall, but he has stayed with that team for his entire career. And isn’t that what you’re looking for with the first pick, a player to build your franchise around? So this got us wondering, is Jones the “truest” franchise player? In other words, of all the No. 1 overall picks of all time, has he delivered the most value to the team that drafted him? Let’s find out.

To figure this out, we are going to add up the total number of wins above replacement (WAR) that each No. 1 pick produced for the team that drafted him. Adrian Gonzalez, for example, has been a very valuable player, but he has produced almost all of his value for the Padres, not the Marlins, the team that drafted him. With that in mind, here are the five players who have produced the most WAR for the club that drafted them.

5. Harold Baines, 30.3 WAR, Chicago White Sox, No. 1 pick in 1977
Baines was a consistently above-average hitter, as his wOBA never dipped below .333 during either of his first two stints with the White Sox. For a time, he was a decent defensive right fielder, but never great, and he spent the last 10 years of his career primarily as a DH. As such, he only topped 5.0 WAR in a season once, in 1984, when he hit 29 HRs with a .304/.361/.541 line. He was a lock for between 2.0 and 4.0 WAR for 10 years. As a consistently above-average player, Baines was quite valuable to the White Sox, but his age and lack of defensive value hurt him later in his career, when he split time between Chicago as well as Texas, Oakland and Baltimore.

3. (tie) Darryl Strawberry, 36.7 WAR, New York Mets, No. 1 pick in 1983
Strawberry had a fantastic run with the Mets from 1983 to 1990. He won the Rookie of the Year in 1983 with a 26 home run, .371 wOBA, 3.0 WAR season and never looked back. All eight of his seasons with the Mets were worth at least 3.0 WAR, as he combined great power — isolated power above .240 every year from ’85 to ’90 — with great discipline — he walked more than 10 percent of the time in every year with New York. He even mixed in some great defense, producing a plus-35 TotalZone between 1989 and 1990. Various problems derailed Strawberry’s career after he left the Mets to sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers in free agency. Strawberry would only put up 6.5 WAR over the rest of his career.

No. 3 (tie) Alex Rodriguez, 36.7 WAR, Seattle Mariners, No. 1 pick in 1993
This era of Rodriguez’s career saw him as among the better defensive shortstops in the majors (plus-22 TotalZone from 1996 to 2000) and the fantastic hitter we still know today. He would win four Silver Sluggers with Seattle, putting up wOBAs of .444, .379, .399, .397, and .433. These are fantastic numbers for any position but are eye-popping for a solid defensive shortstop. As such, it only took Rodriguez five full seasons to equal the performance of Strawberry over nine.

No. 2 Ken Griffey Jr., 72.4 WAR, Seattle Mariners, No. 1 pick in 1987
Back in the day, Griffey was in a class all his own. He was among the best defensive center fielders in the game, including a staggering plus-32 TotalZone in 1996. He had more seasons with a wOBA above .400 then below .400. Griffey was simply a dominant force in baseball for 11 years after his call-up in 1989, excelling at every facet of the game. His performance through age 30 compared extremely favorably with those of Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds and Willie Mays, three of the best outfielders to ever play the game. Unfortunately, injuries derailed the rest of his career and his return to Seattle was simply not productive at all. Still, a team can’t ask for more out of a first overall pick than what Ken Griffey Jr. gave Seattle from 1989 through 1999.

1. Chipper Jones, 83.6 WAR, Atlanta Braves, No. 1 pick in 1990
Jones has been the best of both worlds for the Braves, spending his entire career in Atlanta and producing over that span. Jones has never put up any of the eye-popping seasons like Griffey’s 10.2 WAR 1996, but he’s been consistently excellent. Since 1995, Jones hasn’t put up a season with fewer than 2.9 WAR, and he’s eclipsed 7.0 WAR four times (including his 1999 MVP season) and 6 WAR eight times. Jones is the prototypical combination of power and discipline, putting up isolated power scores above .200 and walk rates above 11 percent every year of his illustrious career. As it turns out, the numbers also tell us that Jones is the “truest” franchise player.

For a broader view, here’s a look at every No. 1 overall pick who has made an All-Star team, and how they fared for the team that drafted them relative to everyone else. This only includes position players.

Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers came within one poor umpire’s call of the 21st perfect game in major league history Wednesday night. It’s hard to imagine that anyone — including the offending umpire, Jim Joyce — feels good about it. Moreover, it’s hard to believe that nothing — be it an overruling from the commissioner’s office or expansion of the league’s use of replay — will come from this unfortunate incident.

But Galarraga’s performance represents another, slightly less obvious accomplishment.

In an alternate baseball world, where pure evil does not momentarily possess Jim Joyce and force him to thwart all our hopes and dreams, Galarraga pitches a perfect game in a mere 83 pitches.

Though we don’t have pitch counts for the earliest three perfectionists — Lee Richmond (1880), John Montgomery Ward (also 1880), and Cy Young (1904) — the 17 most recent performances are accounted for via Baseball Reference (via Retrosheet). Of those, only Addie Joss‘ effort of 100-plus years ago was completed in fewer pitches (74) than Galarraga’s would-be perfecto Wednesday night.

Here’s the list of perfect games, from fewest to most pitches thrown:

In the majors this season, the average plate appearance lasts 3.85 pitches. Of 148 qualified pitchers, Anaheim Angels pitcher Jered Weaver throws the most per plate appearance (4.27); Minnesota Twins pitcher Nick Blackburn, the least (3.30).

The average plate appearance in Galarraga’s pseudo-perfecto? A mere 3.07.

Of course, much of Galarraga’s efficiency is attributable to his lack of strikeouts. Besides Joss’ performance — which, it needs to be said, occurred when the leaguewide strikeout rate was 3.7 K/9 (as opposed to 7.1 K/9 this year) — Galarraga’s three strikeouts is the lowest mark in perfect-game history.

It goes without saying that a perfect game requires a great deal of luck. The “average” perfect game still sees the pitcher allow about 18 balls in play. Considering that a ball in play generally has about a 30 percent chance of falling for a hit, the chances of 18 consecutive balls in play being fielded cleanly comes to 0.7^18, or 0.16 percent.

And that’s just for a pitcher striking out a full third of the batters he faces. For Galarraga and his three strikeouts, the odds were even lower: 0.7^24, or 0.02 percent. That’s 1 in 5000. And that figure still doesn’t account for the absence of walks, hit by pitches, errors, etc.

As for the odds that such an improbably efficient and lucky perfect-game bid would be ruined on the very last play of the game by a bad call?

Unfortunately for Armando Galarraga, they were 100 percent Wednesday night.

Perhaps the tortoise had something on the hare –- he knew how to walk. A select group of players this year are taking the tortoise’s path to success by increasing their walk rates significantly. In particular, improved plate selectivity is working well for Josh Willingham, Justin Morneau and Franklin Gutierrez, and is the reason why their fast starts should be believed.

Morneau’s big season is similar to another player who recently rode an increase in walks into a huge season. Between 2008 and 2009, Adrian Gonzalez saw his walk rate increase 6.9 percent, which compares favorably with Morneau’s 6.7 percent increase in the same category this year. Gonzalez’s corresponding career-best OPS was not all driven by the walks alone -– Gonzalez also put up a career-best slugging percentage last year, just as Morneau is doing this season.

A quick glance at the table above shows that improving your walk alone is not the magic key to success. For every Morneau on this list, there is a struggling Jason Kubel to serve as anecdotal evidence in that regard, although even he has shown signs of coming around lately.

On the other hand, it’s hard not to notice the success stories. As measured by ISO (isolated power, or slugging percentage minus batting average), Colby Rasmus, Willingham, Morneau, Aaron Hill and Kevin Youkilis are all enjoying years more powerful than their career rates. In fact, the average 2010 ISOs of the 10 men on this list are 6.2 percent better than their career ISOs.

The theory is pretty simple: By being more patient, these guys are getting into good hitters’ counts and getting better pitches to swing at. When they don’t get the pitch they’re looking for, they simply wander on down to first base, helping their team by avoiding outs. Increasing walk rate isn’t the only way to improve, but as we’re seeing from these notable spikes in patience, it is certainly one way to make yourself a better player.

Over the past eight seasons, few pitchers have been as consistent from season to season as Jamie Moyer. However, if you merely peruse his ERAs over those years, you probably wouldn’t come to that conclusion, as he has had ERAs ranging from a very good 3.27 in 2003 to a 5.21 mark the following season that had many assuming his career was just about over. But when we strip away some of the luck factors and look more at his peripheral statistics, we can see that the 47-year-old has been about as consistent as anyone in baseball during that time.

A good way to strip away the luck factors and still focus on a single statistic is by using Expected Fielding Independent Pitching (xFIP). Over the past eight years, Moyer’s xFIPs have ranged between 4.53 and 4.86, which clearly is a much tighter range than his ERAs. How does this compare to other pitchers, though? To answer that question, I looked at the standard deviation of xFIPs from 2003-10 for each pitcher with five or more seasons in that time frame. The following table summarizes the results:

A Mark Of Consistency
These are the top pitchers in standard deviation of xFIPs from 2003-2010. (Min. 5 seasons)

Rank	Name	     xFIP SD	Seasons
1	Cole Hamels	0.06	5
2	Mike Hampton	0.08	5
3	Jamie Moyer	0.10	8
4	Gary Majewski	0.11	5
5	Jason Johnson	0.13	5
6	Chien-Ming Wang	0.14	5
7	Kyle Davies	0.15	6
8	Chris Capuano	0.15	5
9	Brett Tomko	0.16	7
10	Victor Santos	0.19	5

Moyer has been more consistent than most of his peers when you remove defense and luck, and his steady run is longer than that of anyone who is ahead of him on the list. There were 433 pitchers who fit the above criteria, and the group had an average standard deviation of 0.72. Moyer’s peripherals have been stable enough to put him in the first percentile of consistency (on a season-to-season basis) when measured with xFIP.

How does he do it? Well, Moyer has had the right mix of strikeouts and walks to keep his xFIP stable over the eight-year sample. Looking at his pitch-type information from FanGraphs shows that the results are not completely surprising, as Moyer hasn’t really changed his repertoire during the time frame in question. He has deployed the same 81 mph fastball, 79 mph cutter, 68 mph curveball and 75 mph changeup each and every season. And since he has never relied on velocity, he hasn’t had to worry about it fading over time like most pitchers do.

Additionally, Moyer’s batted-ball profile, while not traditionally considered a peripheral stat, has looked pretty similar from year to year. Opponents have had around a 20 percent line-drive rate, and ground ball and fly ball rates right around 40 percent each. It appears that having similar stuff each year has led to similar results on balls in play, and it explains why Moyer has been able to continue to succeed into his late 40s.

Two months into the season, the reigning American League Cy Young winner has just one victory. Zack Greinke, who managed 16 victories last season despite playing for a terrible Kansas City club, has been abandoned by his offense this year, as they are scoring just 2.97 runs per game when Greinke takes the hill. In fact, the Royals are just 2-9 when Greinke pitches, a testament to just how bad his teammates are.

But when assigning blame for Greinke’s problems, we can’t forget Greinke himself.

He has been significantly worse than he was a year ago. Most notably, Greinke’s strikeout rate has taken a tumble, falling from 9.50 K/9 last year to just 7.04 K/9 this season, ranking 21st in the American League in that category after finishing third in 2009. Fewer strikeouts increase the need for the Royals defense to make plays behind him, and their below-average gloves are rarely up to the task.

What’s caused Greinke suddenly to morph back into a strike-throwing, pitch-to-contact guy, rather than the blow-you-away ace we saw last year? His breaking ball.

A year ago, hitters swung and missed at 9 percent of Greinke’s curveballs, and a whopping 25 percent of his sliders. This year, hitters are whiffing on just 4 percent of curveballs and 11 percent of sliders.

The slider is clearly his out pitch — he throws it most often in two-strike counts. But he has not been able to get hitters to swing through the breaking balls nearly as often. To try to understand why this is happening, I asked our resident graphing guru, Dave Allen, to look at his off-speed stuff. Here’s what he found:

The first graph shows the vertical height of the curves and sliders that are being swung at, both this year and last. Hitters have adjusted to Greinke’s breaking balls: After chasing a lot of them down in the zone, they’ve now primarily been going after the ones he hangs up in the zone. The second graph shows why this has translated to fewer whiffs: Hitters have been laying off those low breaking balls that they couldn’t touch in 2009.

It appears opposing scouting reports on Greinke suggest hitters should take the two-strike breaking ball, which was Grienke’s bread-and-butter knockout pitch a year ago. And because hitters aren’t chasing breaking balls down out of the zone, Greinke will have to alter his two-strike approach if he wants to get back to Cy Young form.

Raise your hand if you know who Matt Wieters is. I hope a lot of you out there have your virtual hand up. Now raise your hand if you know who John Jaso is. Ryan Hanigan? Carlos Ruiz? Now, there is probably a lot fewer of you with hands up.

Minor League hype is a fickle beast. For every Jason Heyward, there are five Brandon Woods. Many regarded Wieters as the savior of the Baltimore Orioles on his way through the minors. His numbers certainly supported that belief, but they have yet to show up where it counts. This isn’t writing Matt Wieters off as a future Major League star. He just turned 24 so he has plenty of time to adjust to the bigs and begin posting the numbers people dreamed out of him. While we wait to see if that will occur, some catchers that got nowhere near the hype of Wieters have nonetheless turned in some valuable seasons for their big league clubs.

Ryan Hanigan isn’t a sexy prospect but he does one thing particularly well and that’s draw walks. His 31 walks in just 293 plate appearances helped him to a .361 OBP with the Reds. Hanigan, whom the Reds signed as an undrafted free agent back in 2002, has had an even bigger success story this year with a .338/.449/.486 triple slash line while splitting time with Ramon Hernandez. It is a small sample, but Hanigan’s .409 wOBA has made him the seventh most valuable hitting catcher in the majors, despite being a part-time player. Hanigan is almost certainly not going to maintain numbers that lofty, but ZiPS projects him to post a .334 wOBA going forward, which almost exactly matches ZiPS’ .336 wOBA projection for Wieters. Maybe someone should start a Ryan Hanigan Facts website.

John Jaso also flew under the hype radar when he failed to show much power in the minors. What he did show though was good plate discipline and low strikeout rates, which helped to maintain a high average and impressive OBP. Getting an extended look in Tampa due to an injury to Dioner Navarro, Jaso has made his case for keeping the starting job with a .324/.449/.493 line.Jaso’s 8.5 percent strikeout rate is just behind Hanigan’s 8.1 percent and, among catchers with at least 50 trips to plate this year, they rank second and third respectively, with only A.J. Pierzynski bettering the unheralded pair.

Hype of minor league players is generally well founded. It comes from quality scouting reports and/or fabulous numbers. Hype doesn’t always equate to Major League results though, and certainly does not guarantee instant success. Sometimes it takes awhile and sometimes, solid Major League catchers appear out of seemingly nowhere.

It was easy to overlook the Padres in the springtime. After all, their most recognizable face, Adrian Gonzalez, doubles as their only legitimate bat and he spent the offseason popping up in various trade rumors. The rest of the lineup and the pitching staff was filled with various unknowns — not in the sense that the Padres had no idea who was playing where, but in the sense that nobody had reason to know about these guys. Projecting anything but a last-place finish seemed optimistic.

As we near June, the Padres are not only out of the cellar, but actually way up in the attic. So, how are they doing it?

For one, the Padres’ rotation leads the league in xFIP, meaning they own the aspects their pitchers can control — namely strikeouts, walks and getting ground balls. It’s not just the defense-free parts of pitching the Padres have succeeded at, though. Clayton Richard and Jon Garland have sub-3 ERAs and former top prospect Mat Latos isn’t too far behind. The team’s pitching staff has been the best in baseball for the first two months of the season.

In addition to pitching well, The Padres’ staff also maintains the third-lowest batting average on balls in play throughout the league.

That kind of success is a credit to the Padres’ stellar defense and the cavernous ballpark they play in. David Eckstein is no longer a shortstop with a weak arm, but one of the more range-blessed second basemen around. Chase Headley is back at third base and ranks second on the team in ultimate zone rating, UZR, the number of runs above or below average a player allows at his position. Even the Padres’ center-field platoon of Tony Gwynn and Scott Hairston is excelling defensively despite sharing playing time. Those parts combine with the rest of the team to form the unit that ranks second in UZR and first in defensive runs saved in the league.

The one group of players that was expected to excel for the Friars was their bullpen. Sure enough, the Padres’ relief corps has also been the best in baseball, turning games into six inning affairs and converting nearly every lead the team gets into a victory. Closer Heath Bell has led the way, but unheralded setup men such as Luke Gregerson and Mike Adams have each been lights out as well. The Padres bullpen is both deep and talented, and has given Bud Black numerous options with which to shut down opposing hitters in close games.

Perhaps we should have seen the Padres success coming after all. Given the recent success of teams like Tampa Bay and Seattle in past years, this is hardly the first time a young rotation with a stellar bullpen and excellent defense has surpassed expectations.

For those readers without a rooting interest in the National League Central, you might be surprised to learn that the perennially strong St. Louis Cardinals currently have company atop the division standings. Your first inkling might be: Is it the Chicago Cubs and their $147 million payroll? Actually, no. Well, what about the 2008 wild card-winning Milwaukee Brewers? Guess again.

With their 7-5 win versus Pittsburgh on Monday night, the Cincinnati Reds now stand at 26-19, tied with St. Louis. Whether Cincy’s success will last, it’s hard to say. How the Reds have gotten where they are — that’s easier to understand.

The answer is offense.

As you can see in the following table, the Reds are currently scoring runs at a faster pace than they did in 2009. After ranking 11th among 16 NL teams in runs scored last season, the Reds are currently ranked fifth in that category.

Reds' runs scored and run allowed
YEAR	RS	Rk	RA	Rk
2009	673	11th	723	8th
2010	217	5th	212	12th

Yet raw run totals don’t necessarily tell the whole story. Otherwise, one might assume — seeing that the Reds have slipped four spots in terms of runs allowed — that they had simply offset their offensive gains with defensive shortcomings.

In fact, that’s not the case. If we look at the club’s batting and pitching wins above replacement numbers (bWAR and pWAR in the table below) for last year and for the season to date, we find that Cincinnati’s pitching has actually stayed relatively consistent (10th last season; 11th this year) while the batting is significantly better.

Reds' wins above replacement
YEAR	bWAR	Rk	pWAR	Rk
2009	9.5	15th	10.4	10th
2010	6.7	5th	4.5	11th

What does WAR tell us that pure stat of runs scored doesn’t? Well, a couple important things. For one, WAR is park-adjusted. Seeing as Cincinnati’s home field, Great American Ballpark, plays as a hitter’s park, it makes sense that their pure run totals might be inflated. Secondly, WAR is context neutral. That means it only considers what a given batter does at the plate, thus teasing out the effects of so-called “clutch” hitting, which demonstrates high degrees of variance season to season.

In any case, it’s pretty clear that it’s the Reds’ offense that has helped them get where they are.

The logical question then is: From where are the Reds getting all this production? The answer: Basically from everyone. Though OPS+ isn’t a perfect measure — it’s generally acknowledged that it undervalues the importance of on-base, as opposed to slugging, percentage — it’s very helpful for understanding where a player stands relative to league average — and where players stand relative to each other.

The following table gives the OPS+ numbers at each position for Cincy’s batters this year as opposed to last.

Reds OPS by position
Pos	2009	2010	Diff
as C	90	125	35
as 1B	112	134	22
as 2B	106	118	12
as 3B	78	120	42
as SS	77	104	27
as LF	84	126	42
as CF	74	74	0
as RF	105	94	-11

With the exception of right field (where they’ve dropped 11 percent relative to league average) and center (where they’ve broken even), the Reds are consistently improved across the board. In particular, third base (where Scott Rolen is currently hitting .287/.353/.581) and left field (where Jonny Gomes has taken over the majority of playing time) have proven to be significant improvements over their 2009 counterparts.

Monday night was no different. On the strength of 10 hits, five walks and a couple of 3-for-4 performances from Orlando Cabrera and Drew Stubbs, the Reds showed the Pittsburgh Pirates what they’ve been showing the National League these first 40 or so games: an improved ability to push runners across the plate.

At 32-12, the Tampa Bay Rays are on top of the baseball world. Despite playing in the toughest division in baseball, they currently enjoy a six-game gap over their nearest competitor, easily the largest lead of any first-place team in the game. They have outscored their opponents 240 to 138, and their plus-102 run differential is also the best in baseball by a significant margin. The Rays are a very good
baseball team.

However, while they have played well, there are several reasons to expect a pretty significant step back may be forthcoming.

Offensively, the Rays just haven’t been that good, despite being just six runs off of the league lead in scoring. They’ve racked up their runs through timely hitting rather than good hitting, the latter of which is much more likely to be sustained over a full season. As a team, the Rays are hitting .231/.311/.370 with the bases empty (10th best in the AL), but have hit .294/.368/.462 with runners on base (2nd best in AL), and those clutch hits have put a lot of extra runs on the
board.

How many? Based on their .333 Weighted On Base Average (league average is .326), we’d have expected the Rays to score 211 runs so far this year, or 29 fewer than they’ve actually scored. Historically, it’s been shown that 10 runs are worth about one win to a team, so the Rays have gained approximately three wins just by making their hits count. (To read specifics about how they’re producing clutch hitting see this post.)

While getting clutch hits is fun and nice to root for, historically this isn’t the kind of thing that teams can actually specialize in. Over time, pretty much all teams regress back to being about as good (or bad) at hitting with men on base as they are with the bases empty. Good hitting is a repeatable skill — timely hitting is (mostly) not.

So, while the Rays’ record is sparkly, and even their Pythagorean Expected Record is impressive, there are chinks in the armor. With Carlos Pena struggling, Ben Zobrist hitting like it’s 2006 again and the team struggling to find a productive designated hitter, this isn’t the offense of a team that will win 70 percent of its games. While their strong start to the season will help them in their quest for a playoff berth, the Rays would be wise to not rest on their laurels if they want to hold on to their spot atop the American League East.

One of the big reasons the Chicago Cubs have had success in recent years is third baseman Aramis Ramirez. Ramirez has put up some great seasons ever since he joined the Cubbies in 2003, and has become a key part of their offensive game plan. But this year, he’s hitting .167 with a .234 OBP while slugging .280. For six straight seasons, Aramis has posted a weighted on-base average of .380 or greater (.330 is about league average). This season, he’s posting a meager wOBA of just .237. So what’s wrong with the Cubs slugger?

To begin with, Ramirez’s strikeouts are way up. Last season, he struck out in 14.1 percent of his at-bats (league average is usually around 19 percent), slightly better than the 15.4 percent mark he’s posted over his entire career. This season, Ramirez is taking the walk of shame a whopping 23.1 percent of the time, the highest since his rookie season back in 1998. It is very unusual for a hitter to see such a large increase in strikeout rate from one year to the next.

Delving further into his rising strikeout rate, we can see that Ramirez is actually swinging at fewer pitches this year and making contact less often when he does get the bat off his shoulder. To compound the problem, Ramirez is making less contact on balls inside the strike zone, while getting his bat on the ball more often on pitches outside the strike zone. Last year, he made contact on 88.8 percent of balls in the zone. This year it’s 83.3 percent. And on balls outside the zone, he’s gone from making contact 65.6 percent of the time, to 68.7. Missing hittable pitches, while making contact on pitches off the plate that are not easy to square up, is not a recipe for success.

In essence, the numbers bear out the phenomenon generally known as “pressing.” As a reaction to his slow start, Ramirez is chasing more balls and overswinging at those he thinks he can hit. It’s not working, though, and the Cubs need to do what they can to get their slugger back to his old ways. He knows how to hit — he’s just lost right now.