GLENDALE, Ariz. — Sometime around mid-August last year, Mookie Betts convened with the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ coaches. He had taken stock of what transpired while he rehabbed a broken wrist, surveyed his team’s roster and accepted what had become plainly obvious: He needed to return to right field.

For the better part of five months, Betts had immersed himself in the painstaking task of learning shortstop in the midst of a major league season. It was a process that humbled him but also invigorated him, one he had desperately wanted to see through. On the day he gave it up, Chris Woodward, at that point an adviser who had intermittently helped guide Betts through the transition, sought him out. He shook Betts’ hand, told him how much he respected his efforts and thanked him for the work.

“Oh, it ain’t over yet,” Betts responded. “For now it’s over, but we’re going to win the World Series, and then I’m coming back.”

Woodward, now the Dodgers’ full-time first-base coach and infield instructor, recalled that conversation from the team’s spring training complex at Camelback Ranch last week and smiled while thinking about how those words had come to fruition. The Dodgers captured a championship last fall, then promptly determined that Betts, the perennial Gold Glove outfielder heading into his age-32 season, would be the every-day shortstop on one of the most talented baseball teams ever assembled.

From November to February, Betts visited high school and collegiate infields throughout the L.A. area on an almost daily basis in an effort to solidify the details of a transition he did not have time to truly prepare for last season.

Pedro Montero, one of the Dodgers’ video coordinators, placed an iPad onto a tripod and aimed its camera in Betts’ direction while he repeatedly pelted baseballs into the ground with a fungo bat, then sent Woodward the clips to review from his home in Arizona. The three spoke almost daily.

By the time Betts arrived in spring training, Woodward noticed a “night and day” difference from one year to the next. But he still acknowledges the difficulty of what Betts is undertaking, and he noted that meaningful games will ultimately serve as the truest arbiter.

The Dodgers have praised Betts for an act they described as unselfish, one that paved the way for both Teoscar Hernandez and Michael Conforto to join their corner outfield and thus strengthen their lineup. Betts himself has said his move to shortstop is a function of doing “what I feel like is best for the team.” But it’s also clear that shouldering that burden — and all the second-guessing and scrutiny that will accompany it — is something he wants.

He wants to be challenged. He wants to prove everybody wrong. He wants to bolster his legacy.

“Mookie wants to be the best player in baseball, and I don’t see why he wouldn’t want that,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I think if you play shortstop, with his bat, that gives him a better chance.”

ONLY 21 PLAYERS since 1900 have registered 100 career games in right field and 100 career games at shortstop, according to ESPN Research. It’s a list compiled mostly of lifelong utility men. The only one among them who came close to following Betts’ path might have been Tony Womack, an every-day right fielder in his age-29 season and an every-day shortstop in the three years that followed. But Womack had logged plenty of professional shortstop experience before then.

Through his first 12 years in professional baseball, Betts accumulated just 13 starts at shortstop, all of them in rookie ball and Low-A from 2011 to 2012. His path — as a no-doubt Hall of Famer and nine-time Gold Glove right fielder who will switch to possibly the sport’s most demanding position in his 30s — is largely without precedent. And yet the overwhelming sense around the Dodgers is that if anyone can pull it off, it’s him.

“Mookie’s different,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “I think this kind of challenge is really fun for him. I think he just really enjoys it. He’s had to put in a lot of hard work — a lot of work that people haven’t seen — but I just think he’s such a different guy when it comes to the challenge of it that he’s really enjoying it. When you look at how he approaches it, he’s having so much fun trying to get as good as he can be. There’s not really any question in anyone’s mind here that he’s going to be a very good defensive shortstop.”

Betts entered the 2024 season as the primary second baseman, a position to which he had long sought a return, but transitioned to shortstop on March 8, 12 days before the Dodgers would open their season from South Korea, after throwing issues began to plague Gavin Lux. Almost every day for the next three months, Betts put himself through a rigorous pregame routine alongside teammate Miguel Rojas and third-base coach Dino Ebel in an effort to survive at the position.

The metrics were unfavorable, scouts were generally unimpressed and traditional statistics painted an unflattering picture — all of which was to be expected. Simply put, Betts did not have the reps. He hadn’t spent significant time at shortstop since he was a teenager at Overton High School in Nashville, Tennessee. He was attempting to cram years of experience through every level of professional baseball into the space allotted to him before each game, a task that proved impossible.

Betts committed nine errors during his time at shortstop, eight of them the result of errant throws. He often lacked the proper footwork to put himself in the best position to throw accurately across the diamond, but the Dodgers were impressed by how quickly he seemed to grasp other aspects of the position that seemed more difficult for others — pre-pitch timing, range, completion of difficult plays.

Shortly after the Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees to win their first full-season championship since 1988, Betts sat down with Dodgers coaches and executives and expressed his belief that, if given the proper time, he would figure it out. And so it was.

“If Mook really wants to do something, he’s going to do everything he can to be an elite, elite shortstop,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said. “I’m not going to bet against that guy.”

THE FIRST TASK was determining what type of shortstop Betts would be. Woodward consulted with Ryan Goins, the current Los Angeles Angels infield coach who is one of Betts’ best friends. The two agreed that he should play “downhill,” attacking the baseball, making more one-handed plays and throwing largely on the run, a style that fit better for a transitioning outfielder.

During a prior stint on the Dodgers’ coaching staff, Woodward — the former Texas Rangers manager who rejoined the Dodgers staff after Los Angeles’ previous first-base coach, Clayton McCullough, became the Miami Marlins‘ manager in the offseason — implemented the same style with Corey Seager, who was widely deemed too tall to remain a shortstop.

“He doesn’t love the old-school, right-left, two-hands, make-sure-you-get-in-front-of-the-ball type of thing,” Woodward said of Betts. “It doesn’t make sense to him. And I don’t coach that way. I want them to be athletic, like the best athlete they can possibly be, so that way they can use their lower half, get into their legs, get proper direction through the baseball to line to first. And that’s what Mookie’s really good at.”

Dodger Stadium underwent a major renovation of its clubhouse space over the offseason, making the field unusable and turning Montero and Betts into nomads. From the second week of November through the first week of February, the two trained at Crespi Carmelite High School near Betts’ home in Encino, California, then Sierra Canyon, Los Angeles Valley College and, finally, Loyola High.

For a handful of days around New Year’s, Betts flew to Austin, Texas, to get tutelage from Troy Tulowitzki, the five-time All-Star and two-time Gold Glove Award winner whose mechanics Betts was drawn to. In early January, when wildfires spread through the L.A. area, Betts flew to Glendale, Arizona, to train with Woodward in person.

Mostly, though, it was Montero as the eyes and ears on the ground and Woodward as the adviser from afar. Their sessions normally lasted about two hours in the morning, evolving from three days a week to five and continually ramping up in intensity. The goal for the first two months was to hone the footwork skills required to make a variety of different throws, but also to give Betts plenty of reps on every ground ball imaginable.

When January came, Betts began to carve out a detailed, efficient routine that would keep him from overworking when the games began. It accounted for every situation, included backup scenarios for uncontrollable events — when it rained, when there wasn’t enough time, when pregame batting practice stretched too long — and was designed to help Betts hold up. What was once hundreds of ground balls was pared down to somewhere in the neighborhood of 35, but everything was accounted for.

LAST YEAR, BETTS’ throws were especially difficult for Freddie Freeman to catch at first base, often cutting or sailing or darting. But when Freeman joined Betts in spring training, he noticed crisp throws that consistently arrived with backspin and almost always hit the designated target. Betts was doing a better job of getting his legs under him on batted balls hit in a multitude of directions. Also, Rojas said, he “found his slot.”

“Technically, talking about playing shortstop, finding your slot is very important because you’re throwing the ball from a different position than when you throw it from right field,” Rojas explained. “You’re not throwing the ball from way over the top or on the bottom. So he’s finding a slot that is going to work for him. He’s understanding now that you need a slot to throw the ball to first base, you need a slot to throw the ball to second base, you need a slot to throw the ball home and from the side.”

Dodgers super-utility player Enrique Hernandez has noticed a “more loose” Betts at shortstop this spring. Roberts said Betts is “two grades better” than he was last year, before a sprained left wrist placed him on the injured list on June 17 and prematurely ended his first attempt. Before reporting to spring training, Betts described himself as “a completely new person over there.”

“But we’ll see,” he added.

The games will be the real test. At that point, Woodward said, it’ll largely come down to trusting the work he has put in over the past four months. Betts is famously hard on himself, and so Woodward has made it a point to remind him that, as long as his process is sound, imperfection is acceptable.

“This is dirt,” Woodward will often tell him. “This isn’t perfect.”

The Dodgers certainly don’t need Betts to be their shortstop. If it doesn’t work out, he can easily slide back to second base. Rojas, the superior defender whose offensive production prompted Betts’ return to right field last season, can fill in on at least a part-time basis. So can Tommy Edman, who at this point will probably split his time between center field and second base, and so might Hyeseong Kim, the 26-year-old middle infielder who was signed out of South Korea this offseason.

But it’s clear Betts wants to give it another shot.

As Roberts acknowledged, “He certainly felt he had unfinished business.”

For nearly a half-century, the New York Yankees‘ facial-hair policy kept the visages of some of the world’s most famous baseball players whisker-free. Over the past week, with a nudge from a new player and the advice of an All-Star cast, team owner Hal Steinbrenner changed the face of the Yankees. Literally.

“Everyone was kind of stunned,” said Yankees closer Devin Williams, whose desire to sport his signature beard helped spur the rule change that will allow players to wear more than a mustache. “There were a few guys who had heard it was being discussed and a possibility, but that it actually happened — I’m just looking forward to it growing back.”

The announcement by the Yankees on Friday morning that players would be allowed to grow a “well-groomed beard” sent shockwaves through the sport. The draconian rule instituted in 1976 by then-owner George Steinbrenner had been maintained for more than a decade and a half since his death, and Hal Steinbrenner, his son, had shown no signs of relenting.

When Williams showed up to Yankees spring training in Tampa, Florida, last week for the first time after arriving in an offseason trade with the Milwaukee Brewers, he finally came face-to-face with his longtime nemesis: a razor. Never had Williams thrown a pitch in the major leagues without at least a healthy layer of stubble. After shearing his beard, he looked in the mirror, didn’t recognize who was looking back and eventually took his concerns to Yankees manager Aaron Boone.

Williams later relayed the frustration to general manager Brian Cashman, who listened to his points — about how players who feel their best will play their best, about the hypocrisy of a policy implemented to promote clean-cut players applying only to facial hair below the upper lip — and agreed. Steinbrenner then sat down with Williams, and the moment to push for a facial-hair revolution had arrived.

The inconsistent application of the policy — from Goose Gossage’s Fu Manchu to later-than-5-o’clock shadows on the faces of Thurman Munson to Andy Pettitte to Roger Clemens — was just the beginning of the argument for change. There were concerns that players might pass up opportunities to play for the Yankees because of an attachment to their beards. Steinbrenner heard the case and Monday discussed with a cast of stars — alumni Ron Guidry, Pettitte and newly minted Hall of Famer CC Sabathia plus current players Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole and Giancarlo Stanton — how they saw it.

In the days thereafter, Steinbrenner came away from the conversations convinced: No longer was banning stubble worth the trouble.

“Winning was the most important thing to my father,” Steinbrenner said. “And again, if somebody came and told him that they were very sure that this could affect us getting the players we want to get, all we’re trying to do every offseason, right, is put ourselves in the best position to get a player that we’re trying to get. And if something like this would detract from that, lessen our chances, I don’t know. I think he might be a little apt to do the change that I did than people think because it was about winning.”

Steinbrenner and Cashman announced the change to the team Friday morning — and the players responded with appreciation.

“It’s a big deal,” said Cole, who had worn a beard with his past two teams, Pittsburgh and Houston. “I just threw today, and no one cares. Nobody is talking about how I look. I feel like I obviously, being a Yankee fan [growing up], wanted to emulate everything the Yankees did, so it was kind of cool that I was able to shave and be a part of that legacy. And then it’s also really cool at the same time that we’re transitioning to a different legacy to a certain extent, moving forward.”

Williams will be moving forward by not shaving. He said he expects his beard to grow back in two to three weeks. While he believes his past facial hair “was pretty well-groomed,” he’s happy to cut it shorter if the team desires “because it’s nice to feel like you’re being listened to.”

“Hal took the time to hear Devin out, spoke with other players and made a decision that I’m sure was very difficult,” said Nate Heisler of Klutch Sports Group, Williams’ agent. “The Yankees showed today why they are one of the best organizations in professional sports.”

No longer are they the most fresh-faced. Free agent signings with bearded pasts — from Cole to Stanton to left-hander Carlos Rodon to first baseman Paul Goldschmidt to reliever Tim Hill — are free to return to their hirsute ways. Homegrown players can celebrate no-shave November eight months early. And Boone — once himself a cleanly shaven Yankees player — summed up the mood in the clubhouse for everyone.

Said Boone: “It was time for this.”

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Juan Soto homered in his first spring training at-bat for his new team, hitting a solo shot to left-center field in the first inning for the New York Mets against the Houston Astros on Saturday.

Soto signed a record 15-year, $765 million contract this offseason, moving across New York from the Yankees to the Mets.

He hit second in the order Saturday, between Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso, and drilled a 426-foot homer on a 2-1 pitch from left-hander Colton Gordon. The following inning, Soto drove in another run with a ground ball.

Soto entered Saturday’s game with a career .302 average and 13 home runs in 86 spring training games.