If Robin Williams played baseball: shortstop, rated 85

Robin Williams as a baseball player: scouting report

Robin Williams plays shortstop, the position that rewards improvisation. A ground ball takes a bad hop and the shortstop has a fraction of a second to invent a new play, and nobody invented faster than the comedian who could spin a single prompt into ten minutes of characters, voices and tangents. He trained in drama at Juilliard before Mork & Mindy made him a star, so the speed always came with real craft underneath it.

Contact is the top mark on his card and his eye is level with it. He would be a pesky, high average hitter who fouls off tough pitches, works the count and slaps the ball wherever the defense is not. His fielding is right alongside, so the glove is a strength at a premium spot, and his speed is good enough to steal a base. That quickness of thought gives him the reaction time a shortstop needs when a runner is barreling into second. He was also a dedicated road cyclist, which says plenty about the legs he would bring to a long season.

Power is the honest weakness. He will hit very few home runs, so bat him first or second and let the sluggers drive him in. The arm is middling, which is the one reason a manager might move him to second base, where he gives up almost nothing. The outfield works in an emergency. He won an Oscar for Good Will Hunting and gave the Genie in Aladdin his voice, and a drafter gets that same range here: take him in the early middle rounds as a glove first shortstop who also gets on base.

Plays like A quick handed shortstop who improvises on every hop

Put Robin Williams in your lineup

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