Top WAR by Team

[barking_iguana]

When driving, I was curious how many of the top players in teams' history I could name. So I took guesses for all 30 teams and then found the combined WAR (including hitters' pitching and pitchers' hitting) leader for each franchise. Of course, in close calls, WAR (bb-ref's version) may not give an answer better than some other answer, but I'll go with it. I got 21 of the teams right and was close enough on most of the others that I'm happy. So as not to spoil your won fun guessing, I'll put the answers behind a cut.

Team	My Guess	WAR	Rank	Leader	WAR
Twins	Walter Johnson	157.8	1	Johnson	157.8
Giants	Willie Mays	149.3	1	Mays	149.3
Tigers	Ty Cobb	139.3	1	Cobb	139.3
Yankees	Babe Ruth	138.0	1	Ruth	138.0
Braves	Hank Aaron	137.3	1	Aaron	137.3
Cardinals	Stan Musial	123.4	1	Musial	123.4
Red Sox	Ted Williams	119.8	1	Williams	119.8
Pirates	Honus Wagner	115.1	1	Wagner	115.1
Phillies	Mike Schmidt	103.0	1	Schmidt	103.0
Orioles	Cal Ripken	90.9	1	Ripken	90.9
Royals	George Brett	84.0	1	Brett	84.0
Cubs	Ryne Sandberg	65.0	3	Cap Anson	80.6
Astros	Jeff Bagwell	76.7	1	Bagwell	76.7
Indians	Bob Feller	58.2	3	Nap Lajoie	76.4
Reds	Joe Morgan	56.7	5	Pete Rose	76.2
Mets	Tom Seaver	76.0	1	Seaver	76.0
Brewers	Robin Yount	72.4	1	Yount	72.4
Athletics	Rickey Henderson	70.2	2	Eddie Plank	72.4
White Sox	Frank Thomas	65.0	3	Luke Appling	69.9
Mariners	Ken Griffey	67.5	1	Griffey	67.5
Padres	Tony Gwynn	65.3	1	Gwynn	65.3
Dodgers	Zack Wheat	56.5	6	Don Drysdale/ Pee Wee Reese	63.1
Rockies	Todd Helton	58.6	1	Helton	58.6
Blue Jays	Dave Stieb	53.9	1	Stieb	53.9
Nationals	Tim Raines	47.5	2	Gary Carter	53.4
Diamondbacks	Randy Johnson	49.0	1	Johnson	49.0
Angels	Tim Salmon	37.1	4	Chuck Finley	48.7
Rangers	Ivan Rodriguez	47.0	1	Rodriguez	47.0
Rays	Evan Longoria	27.0	2	Carl Crawford	33.1
Marlins	Hanley Ramirez	25.5	1	Ramirez	25.5

When I realized Cy Young wasn't on the list not just because his career was split between teams but rather because the team he had the most value for is defunct, I looked up the top player for all the dead franchises that played at least 500 games (not counting the NA). They're all 1800s teams from the NL and the AA (in one case, from both). A few of them have the same names as other defunct franchises that didn't play 500 games and/or of current teams, but I only counted the one franchise and didn't include any years they played in the NA.

Team	Leader	WAR
Spiders	Cy Young	74.9
Blues	Jim McCormick	51.0
Grays	Charlie Radbourn	50.8
Bisons	Pud Galvin	49.9
Colonels	Guy Hecker	36.5
Orioles	Hughie Jennings	34.3
Wolverines	Charlie Bennett	34.3
Metropolitans	Tim Keefe	27.6
Athletics	Harry Stovey	27.2
Senators	Deacon McGuire	16.8
Nationals	Jim Whitney	9.2