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.”
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David Schoenfield
There’s plenty of history in the rivalry between the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies. It’s about 116 miles from Citi Field to Citizens Bank Park. The two teams been competing for the NL East since 1969. Star players from Tug McGraw to Jerry Koosman to Lenny Dykstra to Pedro Martinez to Zack Wheeler have played for both franchises. Mets fans loathe the Phanatic, and Phillies fans laugh derisively at Mr. Met.
Despite this longevity, the two teams have rarely battled for a division title in the same season. The only years they finished No. 1 and 2 or were battling for a division lead late in the season:
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1986: Mets finished 21.5 games ahead
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2001: Both finished within six games of the Braves
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2006: Mets finished 12 games ahead
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2007: Phillies finished one game ahead
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2008: Phillies finished three games ahead
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2024: Phillies finished six games ahead of Mets and Braves
So it’s a rare treat to see the Mets and Phillies battling for the NL East lead in as New York faces the San Francisco Giants on “Sunday Night Baseball” this week. This season has also been a bit of bumpy ride for both teams, so there is pressure on both front offices to make trade deadline additions in hopes of winning the World Series that has eluded both franchises in recent years despite high payrolls and star-laden rosters. Let’s dig into what both teams need to do before Thursday.
The perfect trade deadline for the Mets
1. Bullpen help
The Mets already acquired hard-throwing lefty Gregory Soto from the Orioles, but David Stearns will likely look for another reliever, given that the Mets’ bullpen has struggled since the beginning of June with a 5.02 ERA. In my grade of the trade, I pointed out the importance for the Mets to add left-handed relief. Think of potential playoff opponents and all the key left-handed batters: Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper on the Phillies; Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy on the Dodgers; Kyle Tucker, Michael Busch and Pete Crow-Armstrong on the Cubs.
Soto has held lefties to a .138 average this season, and it does help that the Mets have two lefty starters in David Peterson and Sean Manaea. They also just activated Brooks Raley after he had been out since early 2024. If he is back to his 2022-23 form, when he had a 2.74 ERA and held lefties to a .209 average, maybe the Mets will feel good enough about their southpaw relief.
They could still use another dependable righty reliever. Mets starters were hot early on, but they weren’t going deep into games, and outside of Peterson, the lack of longer outings is a big reason the bullpen ERA has skyrocketed. Carlos Mendoza has overworked his setup guys, including Huascar Brazoban and Reed Garrett. Brazoban has never been much of a strike thrower anyway, and Garrett similarly faded in the second half last season. Adding a high-leverage righty to set up Edwin Diaz makes sense. Candidates there include David Bednar of the Pirates, Ryan Helsley of the Cardinals, Griffin Jax or Jhoan Duran of the Twins, or maybe a longer shot such as Emmanuel Clase or Cade Smith of the Guardians.
2. Think big, as in Eugenio Suarez
Mark Vientos was a huge key to last season’s playoff appearance and trip to the NLCS, hitting .266/.322/.516 with 27 home runs after beginning the season in Triple-A. He hasn’t been able to replicate that performance, though, hitting .224/.279/.354. That has led to a revolving door at third base, with Vientos, Brett Baty and Ronny Mauricio starting games there in July. Overall, Mets third basemen ranked 24th in the majors in OPS entering Friday.
Lack of production at third is one reason the Mets’ offense has been mediocre rather than very good — they’re averaging 4.38 runs per game, just below the NL average of 4.43. They could use another premium bat, given the lack of production they’ve received from center field and catcher (not to mention Francisco Lindor‘s slump since the middle of June). Maybe Francisco Alvarez‘s short stint back in Triple-A will get his bat going now that he’s back in the majors, but going after Suarez to hit behind Juan Soto and Pete Alonso would lengthen the lineup.
3. Reacquire Harrison Bader to play CF
Tyrone Taylor is a plus defender in center and has made several incredible catches, but he’s hitting .209/.264/.306 for a lowly OPS+ of 65. Old friend Bader is having a nice season with the Twins, hitting .251/.330/.435. Maybe that’s a little over his head, given that he had a .657 OPS with the Mets last season, but he would still be an offensive upgrade over Taylor without losing anything on defense — and he wouldn’t cost a top-tier prospect. The Mets could still mix in Jeff McNeil against the really tough righties, but adding Suarez and Bader would give this lineup more of a championship feel.
The perfect deadline for the Phillies
1. Acquire Jhoan Duran
Like the Mets, the Phillies already made a move here, signing free agent David Robertson, who had a 3.00 ERA and 99 strikeouts in 72 innings last season with the Rangers. On paper, he should help, but he’s also 40 and will need a few games in the minors to get ready. Even with Robertson, the Phillies could use some more help here. They’ll eventually get Jose Alvarado back from his 60-game PED suspension, but Alvarado is ineligible for the postseason. At least the Mets have an elite closer in Edwin Diaz. Jordan Romano leads the Phillies with eight saves and has a 6.69 ERA. Matt Strahm is solid, but more useful as a lefty setup guy than a closer (think of all those left-handed batters we listed for the Mets, then sub out Juan Soto and Brandon Nimmo for Harper and Schwarber).
And the Phillies’ bullpen has consistently come up short in big games. Think back to last year’s NLDS, when Jeff Hoffman lost twice to the Mets. Or 2023, when Craig Kimbrel lost two games in the NLCS against the Diamondbacks. Or the 2022 World Series, when Yordan Alvarez hit the huge home run off Alvarado in the clinching Game 6.
So, yes, a shutdown closer is a must. Maybe that’s Bednar, maybe Clase if he’s available (although he struggled in last year’s postseason), maybe Helsley. But the guy Dave Dombrowski should go all-in to get: Duran. The window for the Phillies is slowly closing as the core players get older. Duran is under control through 2027, so he’s a fit for now and the immediate future. The trade cost might be painful, but with his 100 mph fastball and splitter, he has the elite stuff you need in October.
2. Add Ryan O’Hearn
The Phillies have received below-average production from both left field (mostly Max Kepler) and center field (Brandon Marsh/Johan Rojas platoon). The center-field market is pretty thin except for Bader or maybe a gamble on Luis Robert Jr. I’d pass on Robert, stick with the Marsh/Rojas platoon and upgrade left field with O’Hearn, who is hitting .281/.375/.452 for the Orioles. He isn’t the perfect fit since, like Kepler, he hits left-handed and struggles against lefties, but he’s a patient hitter with a much better OBP, and he’s passable in the outfield.
3. Acquire Willi Castro
Here’s the bottom line: The Phillies have to admit that some of their long-term position players aren’t getting the job done — such as second baseman Bryson Stott, who has a 77 OPS+. Third baseman Alec Bohm has been better but also has a below-average OPS.
That makes Castro a nice fit. He’s not a star, but he’s an above-average hitter, a switch-hitter who plays all over the field for the Twins, having started games at five different positions. He could play second or third or start in left field against a lefty. Philadelphia could even start him in center instead of Rojas, although that would be a defensive hit. Bottom line: Castro would give the Phillies a lot more versatility — or a significant offensive upgrade over Stott if they start him every day at second.
Note as well: Stott has hit .188 in 33 career postseason games. Bohm has hit .214 with two home runs in 34 postseason games. The Phillies need a different offensive look for October.
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