PHOENIX — Mookie Betts’ first spring training as an infielder in nearly a decade comes with a fresh perspective, and not just from where he stands on the diamond.
Betts is no longer the lone $300 million man for the Los Angeles Dodgers, not after Shohei Ohtani inked a 10-year, $700 million deal this winter and was issued the spring locker to Betts’ right. To Ohtani’s right is the owner of the third such megadeal, with Yoshinobu Yamamoto commanding more money ($325 million) over the next 12 years than any pitcher in the history of the sport.
The Dodgers have long been a star-filled operation. But this is different company that Betts and fellow MVP candidate Freddie Freeman are now keeping. And the stakes are as high as ever for the club’s award-winning right side of the infield, particularly after Betts went 0-for-11 during the club’s disastrous, short-lived postseason run last October.
“I guess it all comes back and matters to that,” Betts said this week. “That’s when I didn’t show up. I didn’t do anything to help the team. I know I take great pride in doing what I can to help the team.”
As is his custom, Betts let the loss gnaw at him only briefly. The 31-year-old superstar makes a point of moving on to the next thing. To the next project, from his production company. To his own podcast. To the next position, from being a Gold Glove right fielder to playing a credible (and at times incredible) second base. To the next year, moving past back-to-back October disappointments.
“Just give yourself a couple days and you move on,” Betts said of that NLDS loss to the Diamondbacks, the second consecutive first-round exit for the Dodgers.
Second baseman, Mookie Betts. pic.twitter.com/aYQkd8WBiN
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) February 13, 2024
Within weeks, Betts was at the World Series, though only as a correspondent for MLB’s social media platforms. The rest of Betts’ winter featured him bouncing around from thing to thing. A quick conversation with manager Dave Roberts cemented a move that had been years in the making: Betts, after playing more infield last year than any season since he was in the minors, is now the club’s full-time second baseman who moonlights in the outfield, not vice versa. He returned to Driveline Baseball’s facility in Seattle, just like he did a year ago, at the organization’s behest. After all, it led to one of the best years of his career.
There isn’t much time to let the ending sit.
“I mean, I got kids,” Betts said of his process for extinguishing that loss. “I got a wife. I got a life. I can’t let it derail my life. Obviously, it sucks and I’m going to think about it and I’m gonna figure out what I can do better. But I also have kids to go back home to. I can’t do that to them.
“It’s last year. It’s over with. Last year’s over with. Got a new team, new task. Same goal, but new tasks as far as how we’re going to get there. I got to just make sure I show up.”
Showing up, of course, is what will ultimately matter. Betts rocketed toward the top of MVP consideration for much of last season, making his then-franchise record contract look like something of a bargain as he demonstrated the traits that make him unique. His versatility unlocked something in last year’s Dodgers, propelling a club that did little the previous winter to yet another 100-win season.
Betts played freely. He set a career-high in home runs. But a torrid August (1.355 OPS) gave way to a September struggle (.718), a warning sign for the quiet October that followed.
“I think there was a little bit of chasing 40 homers,” Roberts said of Betts’ late-season woes. Betts finished with 39 home runs, still his best in a Dodgers uniform.
That’s just not the number that has stuck with Betts.
“No matter what team we roll out there, we have to go play,” Betts said. “I have to show up. I went 0-for-11 and we had a really good team last year. So if I don’t show up, it doesn’t matter.”
At his best, he was arguably the best player on the planet other than his now-teammate, Ohtani. By October, he vanished.
“It was hard on him,” Roberts said. “There’s only a handful of people that probably have that sense of responsibility of a superstar player. So when you don’t come through or deliver, then you feel that burden or disappointment or frustration, whatever that might be. He cares. Mookie cares. That’s why our guys respect him and like him and fans resonate with him.”
That burden has lightened some this winter, with the Dodgers signing not just Ohtani and Yamamoto but also slugger Teoscar Hernández, who will replace some of J.D. Martinez’s production in the middle of the order. Those additions don’t flip the page. Nor do they add any wins in October to the Dodgers’ tally before they get there. The aggressiveness, while nice “on paper,” Betts said, is just that.
Ultimately, new position, teammates and all, finding better results after going a combined 2-for-25 the last two Octobers is most important.
“If I did, I would have,” Betts said of finding a solution. “So obviously not. Now I’m in a spot where I have to figure it out.”
(Photo of Mookie Betts: Rick Scuteri / USA Today)
