We study properties of action-minimizing invariant sets for Tonelli Lagrangian and Hamiltonian systems and weak KAM solutions to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation in terms of Mather's averaging functions. Our principal discovery is that exposed points and extreme points of Mather's alpha function are closely related to disjoint properties and graph properties of the actionminimizing invariant sets, which is also related to C 0 integrability of the systems and the existence of smooth weak KAM solutions to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation.