From Dodger Insider Magazine: Mookie Betts — A gifted mind
Betts is often lauded for his physical skills, but there’s another area where he’s heads above
Editor’s note: This story is taken from the pages of Dodger Insider magazine.
Baseball was in hibernation. No games were being played. And there was still some distance ahead for the 2025 regular season and even Spring Training.
But on a nightly basis, Dodger first base coach and infield coordinator Chris Woodward’s phone would light up with the same name on the display.
Mookie Betts.
The Gold Glove right fielder was working on becoming a shortstop — and dead set on becoming an elite shortstop. So he would find a high school baseball field or a collegiate field and work on hand drills and fundamentals with an obsessive drive. Woodward — a big league infielder for 12 seasons from 1999–2011 — was sent video of Betts’ training for evaluation. And Betts would be eager to hear some feedback.
“As relentless as he is — all the great players and great people I’ve been around, really successful people have that same obsession,” Woodward says. “At one point during the offseason, it was like he was calling me every night.”
The physical gifts that Betts possesses have made him one of the game’s superstar players. But the separator is a mental fortitude that fuels his competitive spirit.
In the last eight months alone, there are examples of Betts’ efforts to overcome extreme challenges. Betts’ athleticism is often brought up as a reason for his ability to plow through obstacles.
But what’s between the ears is also what has made Mookie Betts a champion and one of the elite performers of this generation.
Recent examples will reinforce that.
October 2024
Mookie Betts was 2 for his last 31 over three postseasons entering Game 3 of the 2024 National League Division Series against the San Diego Padres. He also had a home run taken away when Padres left fielder Jurickson Profar reached over the short wall at Dodger Stadium and caught Betts’ deep fly ball.
The next day — on a workout day — Betts was on the field taking hundreds of hacks, intent on finding his swing. When questioned as to whether he was “overdoing it,” Betts was assertive in his response knowing what is best for him to perform.
“I don’t care about overdoing it,” Betts said. “I’d rather overdo it than not give effort. Pretty much as soon as I get to the park, I’m in the cage, and I don’t leave until I go back on the field. And I come back inside and I hit some more. That’s what I’ve been doing.”
Teammate Miguel Rojas remembers the scene.
“He’s hitting on the field an hour or two past our practice time, and everybody’s standing over there (watching),” Rojas says. “We have pitchers just serving pitches for him in live BP for him to take more swings. And he’s gaining that confidence of driving the ball to right center. And he hit the homer (the next day in Game 3), and then you see the snowball kind of start to roll. And as soon as he gets the confidence back, it’s over.”
Betts from there went on to create some of the most important moments in the Dodgers’ run to a World Series championship. From NLDS Game 3 to World Series Game 5, he went 18-for-56 (.321) with four home runs and 16 RBI in 14 games. In World Series Game 5, his sprint to first base on a ground ball to Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo helped ignite the now-legendary five-run, fifth-inning rally. Betts’ sacrifice fly in the eighth inning gave the Dodgers the 7–6 lead they would hold for the rest of the game.
“I think that’s what separates Mookie. He’s another level,” Rojas says. “His excellence is coming from determination, hard work and wanting to be the best.”
Rojas offered another example.
Spring Training 2025
Betts’ first move to shortstop from right field in 2024 came with struggles in one area — throwing accuracy. The six-time Gold Glove right fielder made nine errors at shortstop last season — eight throwing. He attacked that area in the offseason and came to Spring Training with the intent to further prove he would be an asset for the Dodgers at the position.
But he also made work fun.
He engaged in a daily competition with Rojas on the backfields at Camelback Ranch: a game of 21 — three points for throws that were caught by the first baseman at his head, two points at the chest.
“He’s just a competitor,” Rojas says. “He’s second to none. That’s why he’s a three-time World Series champion. Everywhere he goes, he’s going to find a way to beat you. And I’m glad that he’s on our team, because it’s really hard when you play against a guy like him.”
Betts is aware of the noise. Regardless of the effort to be a Gold Glove shortstop, there are those who are going to argue that he can’t pull it off. More than a decade into his Major League career, he has moved to one of the most demanding positions on the field.
“I’m really excited to prove everybody wrong,” Betts said in Spring Training. “And all the people that doubt me, they’ll see.”
There’s one important believer.
“He could be very comfortable just staying in right field and being the Hall of Famer he is. But that’s not who Mookie is,” says first baseman Freddie Freeman. “Mookie is going to put himself out there. He’s going to put himself in a vulnerable position where he could be criticized or scrutinized about what he’s doing there, and he doesn’t care (about the noise). He goes out there, he wants to be the best he can be, and he wanted to be the shortstop. I think Andrew (Friedman) and Doc (Dave Roberts) say it the best, ‘You don’t bet against Mookie.’”
March 2025
Not even against a diminished Mookie Betts.
His illness in March, when he was unable to hold down solid food, cost him the first two games of the season in Tokyo. It also cost him nearly 20 pounds.
The already lean superstar was down to 157 pounds from his typical 175/180 when the Dodgers were back stateside in the days before Dodger Stadium Opening Day on March 27.
But it was soon evident that Betts was just diminished in size.
Despite the illness, Betts said he was still strong and that he still had energy. He backed that up with two home runs on March 28, including a walk-off homer to beat the Tigers in the 10th inning.
In Betts’ powerful mind, what might have seemed superhuman to others was simply him doing his job.
“I feel like I’m still good at baseball. Like it (was) still possible,” he said that night.
Though he won’t marvel at his own feats, the ones who surround him will.
“If you think about it, for a guy who has everything, he has won everything in baseball, for him to keep pushing himself to be better and better and better is incredible,” says right fielder Teoscar Hernández. “And it’s good to have those people because you learn from them, and you get better by watching.”
Roberts said in the past that nothing Betts does or accomplishes surprises him. But even the two homers coming back from the illness, Roberts said, was unexpected.
Woodward explains that Betts’ mind just works differently.
Betts processes information quickly, the coach says. His cognitive intelligence is off the charts, which allows him to have complete awareness of his body and sync up his movements to maximize output — whether it’s hitting or throwing or fielding. Once he has a good feel, he can repeat it — which Woodward says also explains why Betts is an elite bowler.
And then there’s the separator.
“He ain’t gonna back down,” Woodward says.
From Dodger Insider Magazine: Mookie Betts — A gifted mind was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.