If Dolly Parton played baseball: catcher, rated 81

Dolly Parton as a baseball player: scouting report

Put Dolly Parton behind the plate and let her run the show. Catching is the position for a born manager of moving parts, and few performers have managed more of them: a recording career, a film career, the Dollywood theme park in the Smoky Mountains and the Imagination Library, which mails free books to young children, all kept pointed in the same direction. A catcher has to track every hitter, every pitcher and every count at once. That is her natural habitat.

Her eye is the strongest part of her card, and it plays at both ends. At the plate she takes close pitches, works deep counts and puts the ball in play, with contact that sits just behind her eye. Behind the plate her fielding is the other top mark: soft hands, quiet framing and the kind of blocking that keeps a pitcher confident with a runner on third. A songwriter who wrote both Jolene and I Will Always Love You knows how to build a sequence toward the right moment, and calling a game is the same craft with a different instrument.

Her arm is the honest weakness. Base stealers will test her early, so pair her with a pitcher who holds runners well and a quick middle infield that covers the bag. The power is modest too, more gap doubles than home runs. If you would rather hide the throwing, she slides to second base with only a small drop, where her glove and her eye still carry the day, and first base works in a pinch. Take her once the elite catchers are gone and enjoy a backstop who makes everyone around her better.

Plays like A field general behind the plate who frames every pitch

Put Dolly Parton in your lineup

12 rolls, nine hitters and a rotation, 162 games. Can you win 117? Free, no account.