From Gold Glove outfielder to shortstop learning on the fly? Mookie Betts has never been happier
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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES — It’s 1 p.m. on a searing Saturday afternoon on May 13, three hours before the first pitch of a game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres, and Mookie Betts is already dripping sweat. He stands on the left side of the Dodger Stadium infield and peers toward home plate, then darts up the middle to snatch a ground ball. He spins, fires to first base, jogs back into the area of shortstop, and then suddenly he’s off again — ranging to his right, charging a chopper, making a backhanded play and completing another throw.
Before almost every one of his games as a Dodger, this has been his daily ritual. Betts, a star right fielder who will forever be a middle infielder at heart, takes upward of 100 ground balls at shortstop and second base, a routine that dates to his days with the Boston Red Sox. It’s his way of maintaining athleticism, building arm strength and breaking up the monotony of a tedious season — but on this day, there’s a greater purpose.
Betts, 30, is preparing to make his fifth start at shortstop for the first-place Dodgers, the perennial juggernauts who have been scrambling at the sport’s most demanding position. Betts hadn’t played shortstop since his first full minor league season 11 years ago. And yet the man who navigates him through his pregame work, infield coach Dino Ebel, says he’s already “better than average” at the major league level.
“This is something that is uncharted territory, really, for me, to see somebody going from the outfield, the best at his position in the game, to come up and play above-average shortstop in a major league game, in a big series,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I just marvel at how he doesn’t get anxious or nervous taking this on. He has a way of just embracing it.”
Betts has made around 30% of his starts at either shortstop or second base for the Dodgers this season and will probably continue to do so, unless an everyday shortstop is acquired before the end of July.
It is both a testament to Betts’ greatness and an indictment on his team’s depth at such a valuable position.
The Dodgers let Trea Turner depart via free agency last offseason and passed on all the other big-name shortstops available, partly because they wanted to try getting under the luxury tax threshold — they didn’t anyway — and partly because they wanted to give Gavin Lux an opportunity. Lux’s spring training ACL tear exposed a massive hole in the Dodgers’ vaunted player-development pipeline. Nobody was ready to come up and fill in. The Dodgers went into the season with a shortstop combination of Miguel Rojas and Chris Taylor and watched them combine for a .125/.200/.306 slash line through the first three weeks.
Betts, who famously moved from second base to the outfield in order to accommodate Dustin Pedroia in Boston, was a shortstop as a teenager at John Overton High School in Nashville, Tennessee, and has pined for opportunities to play the middle infield in Los Angeles. The Dodgers gave him 11 starts at second base from 2020 to 2022. But shortstop was never a consideration — until the middle of last month.
Lux was injured, Taylor was hurting, reinforcements were scant, and so Betts casually broached Roberts on the idea of helping out at shortstop. Within a couple of days, Roberts began to consider it. And when Rojas strained his hamstring on April 18, it became a necessity.
Betts was on paternity leave then, awaiting the arrival of his second child, but he subbed in at shortstop late on April 20 and 21 at Wrigley Field and handled two ground balls without incident. His first start was planned for April 23. Clayton Kershaw, who tends to induce a lot of grounders to the left side, was scheduled as the starting pitcher, and Roberts wanted to get all three of his left-handed-hitting outfielders into the lineup against Chicago Cubs right-hander Marcus Stroman. Roberts sent Kershaw a text message revealing his plan and asking for approval. Kershaw wrote back in less than a minute.
Let’s do it.
Betts got four grounders hit in his direction that day — one up the middle, another slightly to his right and two others directly at him — and took care of them with ease. His next five ground balls over the course of three weeks went the same way. Then came his first error, in the third inning of Saturday’s game. Betts charged a two-hopper off the bat of speedy Fernando Tatis Jr. and threw so wide of first base that Freddie Freeman didn’t even bother stretching for it. But Tatis never scored, and Betts charged another grounder two innings later and handled it perfectly.
This, he believes, is where his growth shows up. These days, his mind is more at ease.
“As I’ve gotten older, I’m just trying to take on less stress and enjoy the game,” Betts said. “I’ve been playing it for so long, and I just want to enjoy it. I don’t want to stress about it.”
Getting there has been a process. Betts says he played shortstop apprehensively in the early portion of his professional career, often afraid to make mistakes, and letting failure seep into his mind prematurely. He was unfairly hard on himself while navigating through his time with the Red Sox, despite a six-year run that included four Gold Gloves, three Silver Sluggers, an MVP and a World Series championship. Through his first three summers in L.A., he found himself “trying to live up to who I was.” It’s different now.
The 2023 season, Betts said, marks the first time he feels as if he is playing baseball with a carefree attitude, the type he believes has helped him embrace this part-time role at shortstop. He credits fatherhood, reaching his 30s, listening to audiobooks about positive thinking and heeding his wife’s advice about seeing the bigger picture.
“I’m just not the same person I was when I was 28. I’m not the same person I was when I was 29. I’ve got two kids, man, I’ve got a wife and I’ve got priorities,” Betts said. “I’m not saying baseball’s not a priority. But, you know, life — I’ve got life to attend to. It’s what I’ve become. You see how hard I work. I’m not not working hard. It’s that when the game starts, I’m not stressing. When I wake up in the morning, I’m not stressing. I’m just enjoying my time.”
Betts is in the midst of another one of his hot stretches, with five home runs and a .970 OPS in May. His slash line as a shortstop or second baseman — he’s made seven appearances at short and 10 at second — sits at .320/.414/.680, and those who know him don’t see it as a coincidence. Baseball tends to come easily to Betts, regardless of whatever stress he used to tack onto it, and so he seeks stimulation wherever he can find it. It keeps him engaged. Returning to the middle infield — particularly shortstop, to him the more foreign and more demanding of the two — is currently providing it.
“If you say he can’t do something, he’s going to prove you wrong,” Ebel said. “He loves the challenge.”
Turner, now with the Philadelphia Phillies, said he believes Betts could be “as good as anybody” if he played shortstop on a regular basis. Turner used to watch the aggression with which Betts cut off base hits to prevent doubles and saw a middle infielder’s skill set translated to the corner outfield. It’s by design.
“That’s why I go in and go play short and go do things at short, because if you don’t use it you lose it,” Betts said. “Go be an athlete. And then when I go to right [field], I turn on all those athletic muscles and I can go catch those fly balls and do all those things. But if I just stood in right all the time, I might lose some of those things.”
Rojas and Taylor remain superior defenders to Betts but are nowhere near as dynamic offensively. With J.D. Martinez absorbing most of the time at designated hitter, Betts starting in a middle-infield spot — particularly shortstop, given the recent production of rookie second baseman Miguel Vargas — creates a path for Roberts to squeeze David Peralta, Jason Heyward and James Outman into the same lineup against some of the tougher right-handed pitchers.
It’s not ideal, but it’s working.
“He has certainly earned my trust,” Roberts said of Betts. “He enjoys it, and he’s good at it.”
The San Francisco Giants acquired three-time All-Star Rafael Devers from the Boston Red Sox on Sunday in a stunning trade that sent a player Boston once considered a franchise cornerstone to a San Francisco team needing an offensive infusion.
Boston received left-handed starter Kyle Harrison, right-hander Jordan Hicks, outfield prospect James Tibbs III and Rookie League right-hander Jose Bello.
The Red Sox announced the deal Sunday evening.
The Giants will cover the remainder of Devers’ contract, which runs through 2033 and will pay him more than $250 million, sources told ESPN.
The trade ends the fractured relationship between Devers and the Red Sox that had degraded since spring training, when Devers balked at moving off third base — the position where he had spent his whole career — after the signing of free agent Alex Bregman. The Red Sox gave no forewarning to Devers, who expressed frustration before relenting and agreeing to be their designated hitter.
After a season-ending injury to first baseman Triston Casas in early May, the Red Sox asked Devers to move to first base. Devers declined, suggesting the front office “should do their jobs” and find another player after the organization told him during spring training he would be the DH for the remainder of the season. The day after Devers’ comments, Red Sox owner John Henry, president Sam Kennedy and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow flew to Kansas City, where Boston was playing, to talk with Devers.
In the weeks since, Devers’ refusal to play first led to internal tension and helped facilitate the deal, sources said.
San Francisco pounced — and added a force to an offense that ranks 15th in runs scored in Major League Baseball. Devers, 28, is hitting .272/.401/.504 with 15 home runs and 58 RBIs, tied for the third most in MLB. Over his nine-year career, Devers is hitting .279/.349/.509 with 215 home runs and 696 RBIs in 1,053 games.
Boston believed enough in Devers to give him a 10-year, $313.5 million contract extension in January 2023. He rewarded the Red Sox with a Silver Slugger Award that season and made his third All-Star team in 2024.
Whether he slots in at designated hitter or first base with San Francisco — the Giants signed Gold Glove third baseman Matt Chapman to a six-year, $151 million deal last year — is unknown. But San Francisco sought Devers more for his bat, one that immediately makes the Giants — who are fighting for National League West supremacy with the Los Angeles Dodgers — a better team.
To do so, the Giants gave a package of young talent and took on the contract that multiple teams’ models had as underwater.
Harrison, 23, is the prize of the deal, particularly for a Red Sox team replete with young hitting talent but starving for young pitching. Once considered one of the best pitching prospects in baseball, Harrison has shuttled between San Francisco and Triple-A Sacramento this season.
Harrison, who was scratched from a planned start against the Dodgers on Sunday night, has a 4.48 ERA over 182⅔ innings since debuting with the Giants in 2023. He has struck out 178, walked 62 and allowed 30 home runs. The Red Sox optioned Harrison to Triple-A Worcester after the trade was announced.
Hicks, 28, who has toggled between starter and reliever since signing with the Giants for four years and $44 million before the 2024 season, is on the injured list because of right toe inflammation. One of the hardest-throwing pitchers in baseball, Hicks has a 6.47 ERA over 48⅔ innings this season. He could join the Red Sox’s ailing bullpen, which Breslow has sought to upgrade.
Tibbs, 22, was selected by the Giants with the 13th pick in last year’s draft out of Florida State. A 6-foot, 200-pound corner outfielder, Tibbs has spent the season at High-A, where he has hit .245/.377/.480 with 12 home runs and 32 RBIs in 56 games. Scouts laud his command of the strike zone — he has 41 walks and 45 strikeouts in 252 plate appearances — but question whether his swing will translate at higher levels.
Bello, 20, has spent the season as a reliever for the Giants’ Rookie League affiliate. In 18 innings, he has struck out 28 and walked three while posting a 2.00 ERA.
The deal is the latest in which Boston shipped a player central to the franchise.
Boston traded Mookie Betts to the Dodgers in February 2020, just more than a year after leading Boston to a franchise-record 108 wins and a World Series title and winning the American League MVP Award.
Devers was part of that World Series-winning team in 2018 and led the Red Sox in RBIs each season from 2020 to 2024, garnering AL MVP votes across each of the past four years. Devers had been with the Red Sox since 2013, when he signed as an international amateur free agent out of the Dominican Republic. He debuted four years later at age 20.
Boston is banking on its young talent to replace Devers’ production. The Red Sox regularly play four rookies — infielders Kristian Campbell and Marcelo Mayer, outfielder Roman Anthony and catcher Carlos Narvaez — and infielder Franklin Arias and outfielder Jhostynxon Garcia are expected to contribute in the coming years.
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Alden Gonzalez
Shohei Ohtani will make his long-awaited return to pitching on Monday night in a matchup against the division-rival San Diego Padres, the Los Angeles Dodgers announced.
Ohtani, 21 months removed from a second repair of his ulnar collateral ligament, will be used as an opener, likely throwing one inning. Because of his two-way designation, Ohtani qualifies as an extra pitcher on the roster, giving the Dodgers the flexibility to use a piggyback starter behind him.
That is essentially what will take place in his first handful of starts — a byproduct of the progress Ohtani has made in the late stages of his pitching rehab.
Ohtani, 30, initially seemed to be progressing toward a return some time around August. But he made a major step during his third simulated game from San Diego’s Petco Park on Tuesday, throwing 44 pitches over the course of three simulated innings and compiling six strikeouts against a couple of low-level minor leaguers.
Afterward, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said it was a “north of zero” chance Ohtani could return before the All-Star break. When he met with reporters prior to Sunday’s game against the San Francisco Giants — an eventual 5-4 victory — Roberts said it was a “possibility” Ohtani could pitch after just one more simulated game.
After the game, Roberts indicated the timeline might have been pushed even further, telling reporters it was a “high possibility” Ohtani would pitch in a big league game this week as an opener, likely during the upcoming four-game series against the Padres.
“He’s ready to pitch in a big league game,” Roberts told reporters. “He let us know.”
If you’re just getting back home from your Father’s Day activities, you had better sit down, because Sunday evening’s Boston Red Sox–San Francisco Giants trade is a doozy.
Rafael Devers, second among third basemen and seventh among hitters in fantasy points this season, is headed to the Giants, traded minutes before their game against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Boston’s return includes pitchers Kyle Harrison, who was the Giants’ scheduled starting pitcher Sunday night (subsequently scratched), pitcher Jordan Hicks, outfield prospect James Tibbs III and pitching prospect Jose Bello.
Expect Devers to continue to serve in a designated hitter-only capacity with his new team, considering his season-long stance, which is primarily an issue for his position eligibility for 2026. He might factor as the Giants’ future first baseman if given a full offseason to prepare for the shift to a new position — or it could happen sooner if he has a change of heart in his new environment.
As for the impact on Devers’ numbers, the move from Fenway Park to Oracle Park represents one of the steepest downgrades in terms of park factors, specifically run production and extra-base hits. With its close-proximity Green Monster in left field, Fenway Park is a much better environment for doubles and runs scored, Statcast reflecting that it’s 22% and 10% better than league average in those categories, respectively, compared with 8% worse and only 2% above par for Oracle Park.
Devers is a prime-age 28, with a contract averaging a relatively reasonable $31.8 million over the next eight seasons, and he’s leaving a Red Sox team where his defensive positioning — he has played all but six of his career defensive innings at third base — was a manner of much debate, to go to a team that has one of baseball’s best defensive third basemen in Matt Chapman (once he’s healthy following a hand injury). Devers’ unwillingness to play first base probably played a big part in his ultimately being traded, and it’s worth pointing out that one of the positions where the Giants are weakest is, well, also first base.
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Perez: Devers gives Giants a ‘really good offense’
Eduardo Perez, David Cone and Karl Ravech react to the Giants acquiring star 3B Rafael Devers from the Red Sox.
Devers’ raw power is immense, as he has greater than 95th percentile barrel and hard-hit rates this season. He has been in that tier or better in the latter in each of the past three seasons as well. He’s at a 33-homer (and 34 per 162 games) pace since the beginning of 2021, so the slugger should continue to homer at a similar rate regardless of his surroundings. He should easily snap the Giants’ drought of 30-homer hitters, which dates back to Barry Bonds in 2004. Devers’ fantasy value might slip slightly, mostly due to the park’s impact on his runs scored and RBIs, but he’ll remain a top-four fantasy third baseman.
If you play in an NL-only league, Devers is an open-the-wallet free agent target. He’s worth a maximum bid, considering he brings a similar ability to stars you might invest in come the July trade deadline, except in this case you’ll get an extra month and a half’s production.
Harrison is an intriguing pickup for the Red Sox, though in a disappointing development, he was immediately optioned to Triple-A Worcester. A top-25 overall prospect as recently as two years ago, Harrison’s spike in average fastball velocity this season (95.1 mph, up from 92.5) could be a signal of better things ahead. Once recalled to Fenway Park, his fantasy prospects would take a hit, as that’s a venue that isn’t forgiving to fly ball-oriented lefties, but he’d be a matchups option nevertheless.
Expect Hicks to serve in setup relief for his new team, though he’d at best be fourth in the Red Sox’s pecking order for saves.
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