Mookie Betts Made Dodgers Repeat Title Possible With Position Switch

There are an awful lot of reasons for the Dodgers’ repeat World Series championship. I ran down a whole bunch of them here yesterday, and at no point in time the name Mookie Betts was invoked. After a 6 for 9 wild card series effort vs. the Reds, his bat went radio silent, as he went 10 for 61 in the next three rounds, with a clutch two-run single in Game 6 his only truly memorable moment.

But he was stellar defensively throughout the postseason, making the trains run on time at his new defensive position, shortstop. He placed the cherry on top of the club’s incredible victory, starting the double play that ended Game 7 on a soft Alejandro Kirk grounder.

The words “new defensive position, shortstop” would make a veteran baseball fan do a double-take. You see, players just don’t move the “wrong” way on the defensive spectrum. Normal human beings move from harder to easier positions as they age, but not this cat. What Betts accomplished this season by simply clocking in was basically unprecedented in baseball history, but he did so much more than that. His work at the position was so good that he earned a much-deserved Gold Glove nomination in his age-32 season.

One could argue that his move to shortstop, which began as an experiment in 2024, was as important as any decision the club made in its two championship seasons. Yes, they brought in Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki, among others, as free agents, building the most imposing roster in the game. Still, this group had flaws, and actually had to play in the wild card round this time around. Their bullpen was a minefield, they had to dig deep for starting pitching depth, had an everyday left fielder (Michael Conforto) who was a healthy scratch for every playoff round and saw key regulars Tommy Edman, Max Muncy and Will Smith all lose substantial time to injury in the regular season.

Betts was one of their few constants. And he wasn’t just a marquee name whose defensive style outweighed his substance, like say, a Derek Jeter. Betts made all of the routine plays and plenty of the tough ones, at the game’s most difficult field position.

How on earth did he do it? People forget what a great athlete Betts is. He’s got 75.1 bWAR through his age-32 season. He’s been a 30-30 guy, won a batting title and a SLG crown and led his league in runs scored three times. He’s had 10.7 bWAR in a season, won an MVP award and finished 2nd three times. In his spare time, he’s a world class bowler.

Crazy thing is, this was arguably Betts’ worst all-around season in years. It marked only the second time in the last decade he did not play in the All Star Game, and will likely be only the second time in a decade that he did not earn a single down-ballot MVP vote. He just isn’t the same guy he used to be offensively. While his K/BB profile remains elite, he simply doesn’t hit the ball as hard as he used to. Maybe he never will.

But the truly great ones find a way to remain relevant, or even better than that. Some harvest the last remaining bits of their offensive output by pulling more or hitting fly balls, trading long-term staying power for short-term pop. Betts has forged a truly untrodden path of his own – move to shortstop to help the club, and actually be great there.

The Dodgers invested a ton of money into almost every facet of their on-field operation in the recent past, and without Betts’ successful position switch they would have had to invest way more in perhaps the priciest pure position player move they would have had to make lately. Willy Adames, Corey Seager, et al don’t come cheaply.

Instead they were able to call upon a surefire first ballot Hall of Famer to move to the game’s most difficult position and excel, giving them one fewer expensive hole to fill. Though Betts did have a couple of marquee October moments this time around, it was the Ohtanis and Yamamotos who deservedly got the curtain calls. As the hangover of this whirlwind World Series classic wears off, take a moment or two to appreciate the impossibility of Betts’ accomplishment, and its importance to the club’s eventual triumph.