Cody Snavely
During the annual Major League Baseball General Manager meetings, which were held in San Antonio, Texas, this fall, Los Angeles Dodgers General Manager Brandon Gomes spoke with the media on the team’s offseason plans, roster movement, and the club’s 2024 World Series title.
However, perhaps the most interesting tidbit from that conversation was that eight-time all-star Mookie Betts will be moving back to the infield for the 2025 season.
But yeah, I think it’s a lot of conversations with him as well. I know the toll on the body is less in the infield for him. So you can make arguments on both sides of it. But the beauty of Mookie is [he’s] the most selfless superstar we’ve ever been around. And that permeates through the team.
As you may recall, it’s not the first time the Dodgers organization has stated that Betts will be a full-time infielder. Just last offseason, during the winter meetings, Brandon Gomes stated that Mookie Betts would be the team’s full-time second baseman after playing 485 innings and seventy appearances at the position during the 2023 season.
Betts, who was drafted as a second baseman by the Red Sox, was excited about the idea of playing his “natural” position again. With the Dodgers dealing with injuries to their middle infield, they desperately needed it from Betts, too.
However, those plans quickly changed when former top prospect Gavin Lux, who was in line to be the Dodgers’ starting shortstop in 2024 after missing the previous year due to an ACL/MCL injury, would get a case of the yips and play below-league average defense during spring training forcing the Dodgers to make an uncharacteristic change moving Betts to be the team’s new full-time shortstop with less than a week remaining of spring training.
From the team’s kickoff of the 2024 regular season in Seoul, South Korea, until Betts fractured his hand in mid-June, he held down and learned a position on the fly, and it went as you’d expect. Offensively, Betts was arguably the best shortstop in the league in the first half of the season, with a .304/.405/.488 slash line, .892 OPS, ten home runs, and forty RBIs in seventy-two games.
By that point, Betts was in the driver’s seat for his second career Most Valuable Player Award, offensively speaking, but defensively, after months of rigorous pregame work trying to perfect his craft at shortstop, may have caught up with him.
In 531.1 innings at shortstop this past season, Betts had a -4 OAA (Outs Above Average), a career-worst nine errors, a .963 fielding percentage, and a 76% success rate in 217 attempts.
After Betts returned from the 15-day injured list in August, the Dodgers decided to move Betts back to right field for the rest of the season, largely due to Miguel Rojas‘s offensive resurgence. Rojas is defensively one of the best shortstops in baseball, ranking in the 96th percentile in OAA, so the Dodgers saw an opportunity to strengthen their roster with Betts going back to his primary position.
Betts would play the rest of the season in right field with a few spot innings at second base depending on the matchup, but his overall numbers there were down from years past, indicating a decline in defensive performance due to age and a previous hip injury suffered in 2021.
Overall, I like the idea of making Mookie Betts a full-time infielder as long as it is second base, a position that he is familiar with. However, that begs the question of what the plans for shortstop are in 2025.
The Dodgers have a few routes to take when it comes to a full-time shortstop in 2025. The first option would be veteran Miguel Rojas who will be back with the team next season after the Dodgers picked up his $5 million club option.
However, Rojas, despite still being one of the best defensive shortstops in the majors, will be having offseason sports hernia surgery and also entering his thirty-sixth season.
The other option is utilityman Tommy Edman, who took over the starting role at shortstop during the 2024 postseason after Rojas aggravated his injury during the National League Division Series.
The 2024 National League Championship Series Most Valuable Player Award winner has played 1267.2 innings at shortstop in his career with a .981 fielding percentage and a 16 OAA.
Over the past two seasons, the Dodgers have been heavily linked to Willy Adames in the trade market, including last winter, when many around the industry saw him as a potential trade candidate.
Adames would remain with the Brewers for the final two years of his control and is now a free agent who can sign with any team he chooses. It has already been rumored that the 29-year-old shortstop will demand a massive deal close to or over the $200 million mark, and whether or not the Dodgers bite at that remains to be seen.
It remains highly unlikely that the Dodgers would give former top prospect Gavin Lux another crack at the position after back-to-back years not winning the job due to injury and performance, and if Betts will start every day at second base, it also puts Lux’s spot on the roster, in question.
Lux, 26, has primarily been a middle infielder in his big league career, although, in the 2021 season, the Dodgers experimented with him playing in the outfield, which did not end well.
Lux has struggled against left-handed pitching throughout his career with a .202/.279/.274 slash line and .552 OPS, and defensively, he can only play one position, which gives him even less value on the roster.
That said, it would not be surprising if 2024 was the last season of Lux in Dodger Blue as they look to trade the 2019 Baseball America Player of the Year Award Winner for a position that needs to be filled this winter.
The Dodgers now have an opening in right field, and the most logical choice, already on the roster, is rookie Andy Pages.
Pages, 23, hit .248/.305/.407 during his first year in the show but smashed left-handed pitching with a 157 wRC+.
Externally, the Dodgers could also re-sign fan favorite Teoscar Hernández, who has already made it known he’d like to remain with the Los Angeles Dodgers organization after taking a one-year prove-it deal last winter.
Hernández was an integral part of the Dodgers this season, hitting a new career high in home runs (33) and posting a 134 wRC+ in 154 games. However, his defensive numbers declined in left field, and he will be entering his thirty-two season in 2025.
If a reunion cannot be made, this can also open the door for top-catching prospect Dalton Rushing, who, in the final month of the 2024 minor league season, was called up to Triple-A OKC and played in left field.
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