If Frank Sinatra played baseball: starting pitcher, rated 85

Frank Sinatra as a baseball player: scouting report

Frank Sinatra has already played a ballplayer once. In the 1949 musical Take Me Out to the Ball Game, he and Gene Kelly starred as a pair of ballplayers who spend the offseason in vaudeville, and here he finally gets the real thing. He would be a starting pitcher, because what he did best as a singer is what a pitcher does best: control the tempo, hold a note longer than anyone expects and land the phrase exactly where he wants it.

As a young band singer he studied the way Tommy Dorsey breathed while playing the trombone, and he learned to carry long lines without a visible breath. On the mound that is the starter who hides the ball and never lets a hitter time his rhythm. His eye is the best mark on his card, so he knows what a batter is sitting on, and his contact is right behind it, which makes him one of the rare pitchers you would happily let swing the bat. He won an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, and he brings a strong arm and a solid glove to go with all that craft.

Power is the soft spot, so when he hits he will spray singles rather than clear the fences. Second base is his next best spot and catcher is right behind it. New York, New York has long played at Yankee Stadium after games, so the soundtrack is ready whichever uniform he wears. Draft him as a dependable middle of the rotation starter who pitches like an ace on the big nights, and pair him with a catcher who is happy to let a pitcher do it his way.

Plays like A smooth veteran starter who changes speeds like a crooner

Put Frank Sinatra in your lineup

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