Mookie Betts moving back to infield for Dodgers in 2025

Mookie Betts will likely be moving back to the infield for the reigning champs in 2025.

Dodgers vice president and general manager Brandon Gomes said at the General Managers Meetings in San Antonio on Wednesday that the assumption for now is that Betts will occupy either shortstop or second base for the club next season.

Betts entered Spring Training last year expecting to move from right field to second base. But following Gavin Lux’s defensive struggles to start the spring, Betts instead shifted over and became Los Angeles’ everyday shortstop entering the regular season.

Betts remained at shortstop until he fractured his left hand on June 16. When he returned nearly two months later, Betts was initially expected to resume his shortstop duties, but manager Dave Roberts reversed course at the last minute and instead moved Betts back to right field.

Miguel Rojas handled the majority of the shortstop reps down the stretch before Trade Deadline acquisition and NLCS MVP Tommy Edman took over the starting job for much of the postseason.

At the time, the Dodgers needed more production out of right field and Rojas was playing well enough at shortstop.

“He’s somebody who puts the team first,” Gomes said of Betts when he returned from injury. “We try to be as open as we can with our players, and we have a great relationship with Mookie. We go back and forth and at the end of the day, he’s just, ‘I’m good with whatever. Let’s go win a World Series.’”

Now that the Dodgers have done exactly that, it appears that Betts is set to return to the infield — a place he has said he prefers to play at this point in his career, though he’s always taken a team-first approach.