If the Red Sox wanted another excuse to remorse buying and selling Mookie Betts, they simply obtained one.
Their erstwhile homegrown star, already a six-time Gold Glove winner within the first ten years of his Major League profession, is shifting to the Dodgers’ infield.
“It’s pretty safe to say that Mookie Betts is going to be our everyday second baseman,” Los Angeles supervisor (and 2004 Red Sox hero) Dave Roberts informed High Heat’s Alanna Rizzo.
Boston drafted Betts as a second baseman in 2011, and he performed 230 minor league video games on the place. It was largely attributable to Dustin Pedroia’s Gold Glove grasp that, as a high prospect, he first shifted to the outfield earlier than his Major League debut in June 2014. He performed centerfield and shortstop in highschool, however Xander Bogaerts had debuted the earlier summer time, and locked down the latter.
“I think it’s going to be fun, if they do move me,” Betts informed the Herald on the time. “I enjoy learning new things.”
After making 14 appearances at second and 28 in heart in his debut season, Betts spent all of 2015 within the outfield, 133 in heart, 11 in proper. He wouldn’t make one other look in heart (or the infield) till the 18′ season, largely as a result of in ’16, Jackie Bradley Jr. emerged as an elite CF defender. He wouldn’t begin at second once more till September 2020, his first season with the Dodgers.
No drawback. Betts, an athletic jack-of-all-trades who moonlights as an elite bowler, grew to become the on a regular basis right-fielder. Starting in 2016, he gained 5 consecutive RF Gold Gloves with Boston and LA; he’s now as much as six in 10 big-league seasons.
According to Betts, it’s a relocation years within the making. Or reasonably, a homecoming. Over the years, he stored up a pre-game routine of taking ground-balls at quick and second, simply in case. Last March, he confirmed that he’d been keen to change place in order that the Dodgers might signal Aaron Judge.
“I’ve been having that conversation for probably the last three or four years,” he informed MLB Network Radio. “It’s just my desire to get back in the infield, because that’s my home… You only play the game for so long, and I would like to get back to my roots before it’s all said and done.”
To date, Betts has began 1,128 regular-season video games (1,028 full video games) and performed 9,997 ⅓ innings within the outfield. He’s solely made 212 begins (188 CG) totaling 713 innings at second, racking up the vast majority of them in 2023. After not more than seven video games and 46 innings there in every of his first three seasons in Los Angeles, he performed a career-high 70 video games (62 begins) and regular-season 485 innings this yr, together with in his first sequence again at Fenway Park in August. He additionally began all three NLDS video games at second, his first time on the place within the postseason, however the Arizona Diamondbacks swept the Dodgers.
Meanwhile, the place continues to be a black gap for the Red Sox, who haven’t had a gentle second since Pedroia, whose final full season was already over half a decade in the past. This yr, Boston used 12 completely different gamers at second – six of whom contributed double-digit contests – and at the very least ten gamers there in every of the earlier two seasons as effectively. Christian Arroyo, led the pack with 62, however was designated for project by early August and completed out the season in Triple-A. The roster’s depth chart at present lists Pablo Reyes and rookies Enmanuel Valdez and Ceddanne Rafaela because the second base choices.
“I’ve never considered myself a right fielder,” Betts informed the Los Angeles Times in July. “I just play right field. I’ve always considered myself a middle infielder.”
Who will full the Red Sox center infield stays to be seen, but it surely’s unlikely to be anybody as gifted as Betts.
Source: www.bostonherald.com