Most Valuable? Here's Answer So Far

Now that we've almost turned the calendar to June, it's a good time to start taking some of the league leaders seriously. Emilio Bonifacio is no longer hitting .500 (he's actually all the way down to .246 after a huge first week), and most of the names atop the leaderboards are the ones you'd expect. This is especially true for FanGraphs' "Value" section, which looks at how many wins each player has been worth in all facets of the game.

It should come as no surprise that Zack Greinke comes out on top, as he's been worth four more wins than a replacement player through 10 starts. That is a rather outrageous number -- it's a full win ahead of anyone else in the majors -- but it's not hard to see that the Royals' ace has been exceedingly valuable. That goes for not only the traditional stats (8-1, 0.84 ERA), but also his peripherals. Just looking at this strikeout, walk, and home runs allowed numbers, Greinke's FIP is 1.52 which, again, leads the majors by a healthy margin. All of these numbers will almost certainly regress as the year goes on -- Greinke is very unlikely to not allow a home run all year -- but even if he falls off a bit, he is going to have some eye-popping numbers at the end of the season.

The second most impressive performance isn't from someone at the very top of the leaderboard; in fact, Joe Mauer doesn't even have enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. Despite that -- wins above replacement level is a metric for which it's very helpful to rack up a ton of PAs -- Mauer has been worth 2.4 wins thus far, tied for fifth among position players. To do this in 48 games, which is about how many most teams have played, would be impressive enough, but what makes Mauer's performance incredible is that he didn't make his season debut until May 1. In the 26 games he has played, Mauer has hit .407/.496/.824, with 11 homers and 18 walks against just 14 strikeouts. He's always been good -- he's had a legitimate case to win the AL MVP in two of the last three seasons -- but the power is just starting to come now; he's already within two home runs of his career high.

That he's doing all of this as a catcher makes it even more impressive, and explains how he's been able to rack up so much value in such a short period of time. Since the fielding metric FanGraphs uses, UZR, doesn't measure catcher defense, the +4.0 wins figure is actually pessimistic, since it's assuming the Gold Glove catcher plays average defense.

To put Mauer's performance into perspective, it projects out to 12.9 wins over a full season, a figure that'd be worth approximately $58 million per year on the free agent market. Not a bad thing to be able to bring to the table in negotiations when Mauer hits the free agent market in after the 2010 season.

Looking at guys who have played a full season, Tampa Bay's Evan Longoria leads all non-pitchers at +3.0 wins.

Last year's top rookie has done it mostly with his bat, hitting .324 with 22 walks, 12 homers, and 20 doubles over 215 plate appearances. But he's also had his second solid year with the glove, coming in at 5.3 runs above average in 47 games thus far. Longoria has now played in 170 big league games, just over a full season, and has hit .288 with 39 homers, 51 doubles, and 68 walks. All that while being worth over 20 runs above an average third baseman in the field. He doesn't turn 24 until October; right now the Rays are looking rather brilliant for locking him up, potentially through 2016, last April.

One other name really jumps out at the top of the leaderboard: Raul Ibanez at +2.9 wins.

Ibanez's signing was highly criticized last winter, and for good reason, but the Phillies' outfielder has defied any reasonable expectation over the season's first two months. He's been absolutely raking, with an OPS (1.109) nearly 300 points above his career mark of .828. Possibly even more surprising than that, though, has been his defensive performance, where UZR has him at 4.6 runs above the average left fielder in 384 innings. This is coming off three years in Seattle where Ibanez's average UZR came in at -12.8. The smart money is on Ibanez regressing back to his career totals over the next four months, but he has certainly gotten a head start on that three year, $31.5 million contract, as he's been worth over $13 million in just 45 games.