LOS ANGELES — This time last year, one of the biggest questions surrounding Mookie Betts was whether he would stick at shortstop following an offseason spent drilling the ins and outs of the position. Now that he’s there to stay for the Dodgers, the question is whether his work this winter can help put a down 2025 at the plate behind him.
By many measures, Betts is coming off his worst offensive season in the big leagues. He hit .258 with a .732 OPS and was worth a 104 OPS+, all career lows. The bright spot was his defense, as he was a Gold Glove finalist in his first full season at shortstop, ranking in the 91st percentile among qualified players with 6 outs above average.
Those around the Dodgers say that no one works harder than Betts, and as such, they’re confident that he has more in the tank for 2026.
Both on and off the field, last year was trying for Betts. He lost around 18 pounds after contracting a stomach illness at the end of Spring Training, and although he was eventually able to regain the weight, he later admitted that it was probably one of the biggest contributors to a slump that spanned the first two-thirds of the season.
Betts also fractured a toe on his left foot, which caused him to miss a handful of games at the end of May. He was briefly away from the team due to the death of his stepfather in July.
Through Aug. 4, Betts was hitting just .231 with a .657 OPS. At that point, he knew he wouldn’t be able to turn his season around completely and reframed his mindset to focus on doing the right things to help his team win down the stretch. That led to a hot finish, as he hit .317 with an .892 OPS in his final 47 games.
Betts carried that momentum into the postseason, although he began to fade in the NL Championship Series and was dropped from the No. 2 spot in the lineup in the final three games of the World Series. Still, the end-of-year surge was evidence that the down season could be a career outlier rather than the beginning of a decline.
Entering his age-33 season, Betts is one of the most accomplished players in baseball. He is the only active player with four World Series rings, a former MVP and a perennial All-Star. Before last year, he was one of the gold standards of consistency, although some underlying metrics hinted at signs of slowing down.
Betts has lost about 2 mph on his swing since Statcast began tracking bat speed in 2023, from 71.3 mph to 69 mph in ’25. Even at its highest, his bat speed only ranked in the 38th percentile among qualified players in ’23, a season in which he led all position players with 8.6 bWAR and finished second in NL MVP voting. He’s capable of being an elite hitter without elite bat speed, but other factors — like a career-low 35.8% hard-hit rate — could have compounded his issues at the plate in ’25.
Betts’ early-season illness could have contributed to those metrics, so coming into the new season in a healthy condition could feasibly go a long way toward a bounceback year. Another factor that should help him is that he should not need to allocate as much of his offseason work to his defense.
Last year, Betts repeatedly pushed back on the notion that his move to shortstop had any bearing on his bat. That rang true enough during the season, but in the offseason, his intensive preparation at his new position may have taken time away from other facets of the game.
But this offseason, Betts is established at shortstop. As general manager Brandon Gomes said at the Winter Meetings, he has “a little more bandwidth” to strike a more regular balance between his offensive and defensive work.
The Dodgers have already seen how an offseason’s work can transform Betts in one aspect of his game. They’re counting on his hard work paying off this year as well.
