Betts’ .614 OPS Puts Dodgers Lineup on Edge
Mookie Betts has a.614 OPS through his first 133 plate appearances, and the Dodgers are still batting him in the cleanup spot. The betts dilemma is simple: the bat has not matched the glove, but the club has not found a cleaner offensive answer.
Betts and the cleanup spot
At 33 years old, Betts is working through a season in which he has posted a 71 OPS+ through those first 133 plate appearances. That is a sharp drop from the player who last season was worth 3.4 WAR by FanGraphs and 4.9 WAR by Baseball Reference, while still producing average or slightly above-average offense.
Dave Roberts has kept him in a run-producing lane anyway. The Dodgers had Andy Pages hitting second, and they had no other healthy right-handed hitting option they were eager to put in the cleanup spot, which leaves Betts in a role that keeps the lineup intact even while the production behind it has lagged.
Los Angeles shortstop value
The offense has not fully found its stride, yet the Dodgers remained 18 games over.500 and led the Arizona Diamondbacks by 7 1/2 games in the NL West. That cushion gives the club room to keep sorting through Betts’ bat without forcing a harder lineup move.
His defense is the counterweight. Betts has strong defensive value at shortstop, and that gives Los Angeles a reason to keep him there while the swings keep coming and the results stay uneven.
In mid-May, Betts put it plainly: “I’m in that season where I’m trying to keep up with the times. A lot of the things I did naturally don’t really work, so I have to find new things. And finding new things takes time. You don’t just find it in a day. It takes time, effort.” The Dodgers need that adjustment to show up soon enough to matter, because a lineup this deep can absorb only so much drag from one of its most prominent hitters.
Pittsburgh and Chicago ahead
Los Angeles was on the road for three games against the Pittsburgh Pirates before a three-game interleague series against the Chicago White Sox. That stretch gives Betts another chance to work through the same problem with the same defensive value still attached to him at shortstop.
For now, the Dodgers are betting on both sides of his game at once. They need the at-bats to come around, but they are not ready to pay for that search by pulling him off the position that still helps keep the rest of the roster flexible.
