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Although he’s solely 32 years previous and in his twelfth main league season, Mookie Betts has already achieved sufficient to safe a spot within the Corridor of Fame. He’s made eight All-Star groups, received six Gold Gloves for granted fielder, taken dwelling an MVP award whereas ending second thrice, and helped his groups to 3 championships. (He’s the one energetic place participant with three rings) He already ranks eighth amongst proper fielders in JAWS, and is fourth in seven-year peak rating, behind solely Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, and Henry Aaron. Like all the good ones, he’s hardly content material to relaxation on his laurels. Not solely is he within the midst of his third straight season making substantial contributions to the Dodgers’ center infield, however he’s emerged as a star-caliber shortstop in a mid-career transfer that lacks a contemporary parallel.
“For me he’s a grade and a half higher at that place than he was final 12 months,” mentioned Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts over Memorial Day Weekend, in the course of the staff’s journey to Citi Area. “He seems like a serious league shortstop now, the place final 12 months there have been occasions I didn’t really feel that approach. However I feel he’s a man that loves a problem and he’s actually realized that problem and retains getting higher every evening.”
Requested to elaborate on what has modified for Betts, Roberts mentioned, “Repetitions, confidence, he’s had a number of completely different performs that he’s been capable of see in video games — however I feel (the largest distinction) is confidence. He’s only a higher defender proper now.”
For Roberts, Betts’ first step is the place he actually shines. “I feel his capacity to get off on the ball is pretty much as good as anyone in baseball,” the supervisor mentioned late final month.
Betts isn’t a whole newcomer to shortstop. He starred on the place at Overton Excessive Faculty in Nashville and was drafted as a shortstop by the Purple Sox in 2011. Professionally, nevertheless, his résumé on the place was a skinny one till just lately. He performed six innings at quick throughout his skilled debut within the Gulf Coast League in 2011, one other 13 video games there (in addition to 58 at second base) at Low-A Lowell the following season, and made a two-inning cameo within the Arizona Fall League in 2013. However he wasn’t lengthy for the center infield. He performed 46 video games on the keystone within the minors in 2014, then 14 for the Purple Sox that 12 months after Dustin Pedroia suffered a season-ending damage. Whereas starring for Boston and Los Angeles in proper area, Betts added simply 15 extra appearances at second base from 2015 to ’22, a few of them just for just a few innings.
Quick-forward to February 2023. After Trea Turner departed the Dodgers by way of free company, the staff deliberate for Gavin Lux to take over the place, however Lux tore his proper ACL throughout a February 28 spring coaching contest. Betts all of the sudden reentered the middle-infield image. He dabbled at second base whereas prospect Miguel Vargas tried to get a foothold, and by the tip of April had not solely made six begins there, but in addition 4 at shortstop when a hamstring pressure sidelined Miguel Rojas, Lux’s substitute. By the All-Star break, Betts had began 54 video games in proper area, 19 at second, and 12 at quick, offering spectacular protection contemplating how lengthy it had been since he’d performed on the filth. Vargas’ offensive struggles led the Dodgers to demote him to Triple-A Oklahoma Metropolis after the primary half of the season. Roberts briefly tried deadline acquisition Amed Rosario at each center infield spots, however settled on typically utilizing Betts as a part of a multi-position platoon. Towards lefties, Betts began in proper area with Rosario at second, whereas towards righties Betts began at second with the resurgent Jason Heyward in proper; Rojas dealt with quick towards each. Betts completed with 77 begins in proper and 62 at second, plus the 12 at quick, a versatility that enhanced his MVP case, although he misplaced to Ronald Acuña Jr. within the 12 months of his unprecedented mixture of 41 homers and 73 steals.
Throughout the 2023 Winter Conferences, Roberts revealed the Dodgers deliberate to maintain Betts as their on a regular basis second baseman in ’24, with Lux at shortstop and Rojas as a backup, however when Lux struggled along with his throws early in spring coaching, the 2 switched positions. Betts appeared like a pure at occasions, displaying off good vary, however he was clearly stretched, significantly when it got here to his throws. After he landed on the injured record in mid-June as a consequence of a fractured left hand, the Dodgers went ahead with Rojas and deadline acquisition Tommy Edman at shortstop, returning Betts to proper area as soon as his hand healed.
The Dodgers did nothing lower than win their second World Sequence with Betts as their proper fielder, however Betts couldn’t let the state of affairs relaxation. Even when he’d agreed to maneuver again to proper area final summer season, he informed Chris Woodward (at that time a particular assistant and roving infield teacher, now a coach) as regards to his try to play shortstop. “For now it’s over, however we’re going to win the World Sequence, after which I’m coming again.”
Betts spent the winter working to enhance at shortstop, a luxurious he didn’t have in the course of the winter of 2023–24. From ESPN’s Alden González:
From November to February, Betts visited highschool and collegiate infields all through the L.A. space on an virtually every day foundation in an effort to solidify the small print of a transition he didn’t have time to really put together for final season.
Pedro Montero, one of many Dodgers’ video coordinators, positioned an iPad onto a tripod and aimed its digital camera in Betts’ route whereas he repeatedly pelted baseballs into the bottom with a fungo bat, then despatched Woodward the clips to evaluate from his dwelling in Arizona. The three spoke virtually every day.
Betts moreover communicated with and labored out with Rojas, who instilled the necessity to use completely different arm slots — plural — from what Betts was used to in proper area. “He’s understanding now that you just want a slot to throw the ball to first base, you want a slot to throw the ball to second base, you want a slot to throw the ball dwelling and from the aspect,” Rojas informed The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya in March.
Betts’ season started inauspiciously. Shortly earlier than the Dodgers departed for his or her season-opening Tokyo Sequence in Japan, he contracted a thriller sickness that not solely sidelined him for these two video games towards the Cubs, however prevented him from consuming full meals and brought on him to lose 23 kilos, no small matter for a 175-pound athlete. His offense has suffered, with a drop in wRC+ from 141 final 12 months to 110 this 12 months, however he’s proven notable enchancment within the area.
Betts has began 68 of the Dodgers’ 76 video games at shortstop, taking part in 583 innings there (52 2/3 greater than final 12 months) with out logging a single inning at one other place. Whereas that also constitutes a modest pattern, a number of metrics paint a compelling image that illustrates his enchancment. First, some old-school statistics:
Mookie Betts Shortstop Protection — Conventional
Season
Inn
PO
A
E
E_field
E_throw
DP
Fld%
RF/9
lgRF9
2023
98.0
16
27
3
1
2
4
.935
3.95
3.85
2024
531.1
86
150
9
1
8
30
.963
4.00
3.82
2025
583.0
78
159
3
1
2
29
.988
3.66
3.76
SOURCE: Baseball-Reference
As soon as upon a time, all we needed to go on for defensive numbers had been putouts, assists, errors, and fielding share. These figures are a lot much less helpful now, but it surely’s value noting the excellence between errors made whereas fielding the ball (E_field) and people made whereas throwing (E_throw). Betts has been constantly sure-handed, however after making eight throwing errors final 12 months, he’s reduce that down to 2 to date, in barely extra taking part in time. Then again, he’s making fewer performs (putouts plus assists) per recreation, each relative to his personal work final 12 months (RF/9, for vary issue per 9 innings) and to the league (lgRF/9). He’s swung from besting the league common by 0.18 performs per 9 to falling quick by 0.1 performs per 9.
What’s lacking from that comparability is alternative. In line with Baseball Reference, the share of right-handed batters the Dodgers have confronted with Betts at shortstop — which is to say batters extra inclined to tug the ball to the left aspect of the infield — has dropped from 59% in 2024 to 54% this 12 months, whereas the league common has dropped from 59% to 56%. In the meantime, the share of batters producing groundballs towards Dodgers pitchers with Betts at shortstop has dropped from 29% to 27%, whereas the league common has remained at 29% in each years. Even and not using a components to make a precise adjustment for Betts’ comparatively restricted alternatives, the distinction in all probability comes out within the wash.
Tuning to superior stats, whereas the Defensive Runs Saved values we publish at FanGraphs match these at Baseball Reference and Fielding Bible, these websites provide extra detailed breakdowns which are helpful when peeking beneath the hood. For one factor, Fielding Bible provides directional breakdowns à la Statcast’s Outs Above Common system (which I’ll get to subsequent). For an additional, the system individually accounts for a defender’s runs worth in three classes: Air (fairly negligible for infielders, with all however just a few inside one run of common), Vary, and Throwing, as a part of what Sports activities Information Options calls the PART system with Positioning (the P in PART) credited to the staff and never the person participant. Word that the run values are offered as entire numbers, simply as in Statcast, whereas the decimals are hidden, which explains why the displayed figures don’t seem so as to add up:
Mookie Betts Shortstop Protection — Defensive Runs Saved
Season
GFP
DM
To Proper (3B)
Straight on
To Left (1B)
Air
Vary
Throwing
Whole DRS
2023
1
0
0
-2
2
0
0
-1
0
2024
5
10
0
0
4
0
6
-4
3
2025
8
5
6
2
1
0
4
4
7
SOURCE: Fielding Bible
GFP stands for Good Fielding Performs, which Fielding Bible describes as performs “when a fielder does one thing to document an out or forestall a base development that we wouldn’t usually anticipate from a fielder on the place.” (There are apparently about 30 sorts.) Betts has already surpassed final 12 months’s complete of these whereas reducing down on Defensive Misplays (DM), any play of roughly 60 sorts “the place the fielder screws up however isn’t really charged with an error,” leading to both a batter reaching base or advancing an additional base, equivalent to a bobbled ball on a double play alternative or a ball hit proper previous an infielder. In line with Sports activities Information Options’ Mark Simon, on grounders Betts has decreased his mixed complete of DM and errors from six final 12 months to 2 this 12 months, whereas on throws he’s reduce his DM plus errors from 9 to 3.
Going by the DRS directional elements — which account for each vary and throwing — Betts has improved vastly on performs made to his proper (towards third base) and straight forward relative to final 12 months, however hasn’t been pretty much as good on performs to his left (towards first base). On throwing alone, he’s improved by eight runs from 12 months to 12 months, which jibes along with his decreased variety of throwing errors. Including up all of the air, vary, and throwing classes, Betts has improved from 3 DRS (tied for 18th within the majors, trailing many gamers with a whole lot extra innings) to 7 DRS (tied with Nick Allen and Zach Neto for third within the majors, behind solely Taylor Partitions and Jeremy Peña).
Lastly, Statcast supplies one other wealthy trove of knowledge.
Mookie Betts Shortstop Protection — Statcast
Yr
FRV
OAA
In
Lat 3B
Lat 1B
Again
RHB
LHB
Att
Success
Est Success
Success Added
2023
-2
-2
-3
0
0
0
-2
0
46
74%
78%
-4%
2024
-3
-4
-2
2
-5
0
-4
0
217
76%
78%
-2%
2025
4
5
4
3
-2
0
2
3
224
79%
76%
2%
SOURCE: Baseball Savant
The OAA (Outs Above Common) figures are damaged into directional elements: in, again, lateral towards third base and lateral towards first base. In line with Statcast, Betts’ power final 12 months was his capacity to make performs within the shortstop-third base gap. He’s surpassed final 12 months’s OAA in that route whereas additionally posting internet enhancements of three outs on performs to his left, and 6 outs on balls in entrance of him. These directional measures conflict with the DRS ones, but it surely’s truthful to marvel if the discrepancies owe something to what’s captured by that system’s Positioning element. Primarily based upon Statcast’s estimates, Betts is changing about 2% extra performs into outs than the typical main league shortstop, in comparison with 2% fewer than common final 12 months.
Statcast doesn’t escape run values for infielder throwing because it does for outfielders, but it surely does measure arm power within the type of common velocity on the highest 5% of a participant’s throws. By that measure, Betts’ common top-5% throw has improved from 78.3 mph to 81.8 mph. That additional mustard nonetheless locations him simply twenty fourth out of 36 qualifying shortstops, 3.7 mph under the foremost league common (Gabriel Arias and Elly De La Cruz rank first and second, with 91.9 mph and 91.7 mph, respectively). Wanting again, Betts was 59th out of 60 final 12 months, 8.6 mph under common. Progress!
Boiling it down, throughout comparable pattern sizes Betts has improved by 4 runs based on DRS and by seven runs based on FRV. Not solely is he tied for third within the majors within the former, he’s tied for fourth within the latter, which might be spectacular even when he had been a seasoned veteran. Right here’s how he stacks up alongside the energetic Gold Glove winners nonetheless taking part in shortstop:
Mookie Betts vs. Energetic Gold Glove Shortstops
Statistics are for 2025 solely (minimal 100 innings at shortstop).
This isn’t to recommend Betts is worthy of a Gold Glove, however he’s not misplaced with these admittedly noisy partial-season metrics — and that’s because the oldest member of the group! Which brings us again to the distinctiveness of this feat. In April, Zach Crizer searched for precedents to what Betts is trying:
Solely 11 gamers on document have grow to be major shortstops for the primary time of their fifth major-league season or after. And Betts is barely the second to make that leap from the outfield. The primary was Howie Shanks of the 1917 Washington Senators (aka Grifs). Shanks was much less productive in his 14-season profession than Betts was in 2023.
A better parallel, when it comes to prominence, is likely to be Gil McDougald. A sterling infielder on the star-studded Fifties New York Yankees, he received AL Rookie of the Yr, made an All-Star staff and twice obtained MVP votes taking part in a mixture of second and third base earlier than he was requested to attempt shortstop to succeed Phil Rizzuto.
… He spent two seasons as the first shortstop, incomes top-10 MVP finishes each years, earlier than pivoting again to second base. Extra just lately, the Baltimore Orioles and Dodgers gave superlative third base defender Manny Machado a season of run at shortstop as he approached free company. It turned out to be a one-year experiment.
Machado, one other participant more likely to wind up in Cooperstown, performed shortstop virtually solely within the Orioles’ chain, however upon reaching Baltimore, he was bumped to 3rd base by three-time Gold Glove winner J.J. Hardy. He received Gold Gloves on the scorching nook in 2013 and ’15, and performed quick when Hardy was injured in ’15 and ’16. Over a mixed 433 innings at shortstop in these two seasons, he netted 3 DRS, and had 2 FRV in 380 innings in 2016, the primary season for which that metric is offered. The Orioles gave him an extended run at quick in 2018 following Hardy’s retirement; in a complete of 147 video games and 1,261 innings with Orioles and Dodgers (after a deadline blockbuster), he managed 2 FRV however -10 DRS. Filling in for the injured rookie Fernando Tatis Jr. in 2019, each gamers’ first season with the Padres, Machado once more scuffled (-1 FRV and -4 DRS in 299 innings). He hasn’t performed shortstop since.
ESPN’s González supplied one other parallel within the outfield-to-shortstop sweepstakes:
Solely 21 gamers since 1900 have registered 100 profession video games in proper area and 100 profession video games at shortstop, based on ESPN Analysis. It’s an inventory compiled principally of lifelong utility males. The one one amongst them who got here near following Betts’ path might need been Tony Womack, an every-day proper fielder in his age-29 season and an every-day shortstop within the three years that adopted. However Womack had logged loads of skilled shortstop expertise earlier than then.
The sunshine-hitting Womack, who debuted in 1993, performed shortstop for the Diamondbacks from 2000–02, the final three years earlier than DRS turned out there. By the much less subtle Whole Zone, he netted out as common throughout 410 video games at shortstop, however so weak was his bat (71 wRC+) that he totaled simply 2.1 bWAR and 1.7 fWAR for these three seasons, with highs of 1.4 bWAR and 1.0 fWAR for the 2001 World Sequence winners.
Even when we solely think about gamers who logged 100 video games at each shortstop and within the outfield of their careers, no matter sequence, Betts is in rarefied air:
Highest WAR Amongst Gamers With
100 Video games at Shortstop and in Outfield
SOURCE: Baseball-Reference
* = Corridor of Famer
Wagner and Davis debuted within the nineteenth Century and starred at shortstop however moved across the diamond a good bit. Wagner, one of many authentic 5 Corridor of Fame inductees, performed extra outfield and third base than shortstop early in his profession; he didn’t play greater than 61 video games at quick in a season till 1903, his age-29 marketing campaign. Davis broke in as an outfielder with the Cleveland Spiders (!) at age 19 in 1890 and performed principally third base from 1892-96 earlier than turning into an everyday shortstop for the Giants in ’97, starting an 11-year run on the place. Yount moved from shortstop to heart area (with a short detour to left) in his age-29 season and at age 33 turned simply the third participant to win an MVP award at a number of positions, after Hank Greenberg and Musial, each of whom did in order outfielders and first basemen. Ward was a nineteenth Century pitcher who performed the outfield when he wasn’t on the mound, then after an arm damage moved to shortstop in 1885, at age 25. Irvin was a Negro Leagues star who solely performed a plurality of video games at shortstop in 1941 (at age 22), ’46, and ’47 earlier than turning into an early integration pioneer with the Giants. Phillips was the proto-Zobrist, capable of deal with any one among a number of positions on a given day or season. Marte primarily performed shortstop in his first three seasons within the majors (2015–17) with the Mariners and Diamondbacks. He’s since made two All-Star groups, one as a middle fielder (2019, age 25) and one as a second baseman (2024, age 30).
These are some nice gamers, however at finest they’re distant parallels or imperfect analogues to Betts. By his personal account and people of Roberts, Woodward and others, he’s removed from a completed product, however he’s doing one thing we’ve by no means fairly seen, and it’s a sight to behold.
