The man wearing No. 50 for the Los Angeles Dodgers looks decidedly different this season.
Mookie Betts is in the midst of the most baffling season of his career, one that, to this point, defies explanation. The star shortstop is recording career lows across the board on offense despite playing in all but nine of L.A.'s games and is rating as a below-average hitter for the first time in his career. His struggles at the plate have led to some serious questions for the defending World Series champions.
With Betts looking like a shell of himself, the Dodgers have a big hole at the top of their lineup just as the season heads for the stretch. L.A. has a 4 1/2 game lead in the National League West, but their recent struggles have made a repeat championship look less likely. They need their star to hit like he's capable of doing.
Given what we’re used to seeing from the eight-time All-Star, his Statcast page is downright depressing. While his plate discipline rates have remained elite, his batted-ball metrics have sharply declined.
What follows is a look inside the numbers of Betts’s most challenging season to capture the wide-ranging nature of his travails.
3 — Home runs in the last 49 games for Betts. In that time he is slugging .307 with an OPS of .578.
91— Betts's wRC+ this season, the lowest of his career, meaning he’s been 9% worse than the average MLB hitter. It’s 49 points lower than his 2024 number (140), 74 lower than in 2023 (165), and 94 lower than his career-best of 185 in 2019.
.238 — Betts's batting average, the lowest of his career by 26 points, and 51 points lower than in 2024.
.146 — Betts’s batting average against breaking balls, down from .250 last season and .309 in 2023.
.309 — His on-base percentage, the lowest of Betts's career by 31 points, and 63 points lower than in 2024.
.370 — Slugging percentage, the lowest of Betts's career by 74 points. The previous low came during his rookie season in 2014. It's also 121 points lower than in 2024.
.679 — OPS, the lowest of his career, 184 points lower than in 2024 (.863) and 308 points lower than in 2023.
.317 — Expected weighted on base percentage, the lowest of Betts's career and 114 points lower than his career-best of .431 in 2018. It is also 39 points lower than in 2024.
.404 — Expected slugging percentage, the lowest of his career, 43 points lower than in 2024 and 202 points lower than his career-best in 2018.
5.5 — Betts's barrel percentage, which is 0.5 points lower than in 2024, but 6.9 points lower than in 2023, and 8.6 lower than his career-best (14.1) in 2018.
34.1 — His hard hit percentage, a career-low, 5.4 points worse than last season and 14.4 percent worse than 2023.
83.8 — His contact percentage, which measures the percentage of time he makes contact when swinging at pitches. This will shock you but it's the lowest of his career.
88.3 — Betts's average exit velocity, down 4.1 mph from his career-high of 92.4 in 2023. And, yes, a career-low.
68.8 — Betts’s bat speed, which ranks in only the 11th percentile of MLB. It’s also down 2.5 mph from 2023, when he ranked in the 38th percentile.
66.7% — The percentage of games the Dodgers won through April 14, when Betts’s OPS was .954.
56.5% — The percentage of games the Dodgers have won since April 15, during which Betts is slashing .226/.292/.338 for an OPS of .630. Los Angeles is still a good team without Betts at his best, but his performance could be the difference between a good and great Dodgers team.
270 million — Amount of dollars left on Betts's contract after this season, with seven years remaining. That total includes $115 million in deferred money he'll receive from 2033 through '44. His luxury tax hit will be $30.4 million annually.
Betts is an eight-time All-Star, a seven-time Silver Slugger, a three-time World Series champion and the 2018 American League MVP. He deserves more time to work out of this months-long slump. The Dodgers haven't suffered terribly even with him struggling and their typical wave of pitching injuries, as they still have a decent lead atop the NL West.
It's possible the move to shortstop has had an impact on Betts. He's 32 with a slight built at 5'10" and 180 pounds if you buy his measurements. The physical toll of playing short every day could be contributing to his struggles at the plate.
The Dodgers could move Betts back to the outfield—where he's a six-time Gold Glove winner—and take some of the daily wear off of him, but their lack of infield talent is an issue. Miguel Rojas, Hyeseong Kim and Tommy Edman aren't top-level replacements, and it's far easier to find a corner outfielder than an everyday shortstop.
It’s also possible one of baseball’s most consistent performers of the last decade is entering the next, less productive stage of his career. The decline in bat speed coinciding with reduced exit velocity especially backs up that concerning notion. Perhaps a change in approach is needed before the playoffs begin and the games really start to matter for the Dodgers.
