Dodger Thoughts

Jon Weisman's outlet for dealing psychologically with the Los Angeles Dodgers, baseball and life

Month: November 2022

Mookie malarkey

This writeup appeared alongside many others in my new newsletter, Slayed by Voices. I still want to share Dodger news here, but if you’ve enjoyed my writing in the past, this is the focus of my attention now. Please check it out, share and subscribe. 

In 2022, the Dodgers’ Marvelous Mookie Betts won the Gold Glove Award for National League right fielders, the sixth time in the past seven seasons he has won that honor as an outfielder.

Betts is also the only current Dodger outfielder guaranteed a starting spot in 2023. With Cody Bellinger gone and Chris Taylor coming off a terrible season, left and center field are currently wide open for contention among Taylor, Trayce Thompson and prospect James Outman. All three have potential for 2023, but none represents a comfortable choice for either job.

Nevertheless, with the Dodgers emerging as a not-quite-longshot to sign Aaron Judge, the 2022 American League Most Valuable Player who blasted 62 home runs, a weird line of thinking has arisen among some fans and media that in order to make room for Judge in the outfield, the Dodgers might move Betts to second base.

If you follow the Dodgers during the baseball season but lose track of them during the offseason, this conversation probably comes out of left fi— well, out of nowhere.

It’s true that like Betts, Judge is best suited for right field. It’s also true that Betts started five games at second base last year and has 25 starts there in his major-league career (out of 1,069 regular season games).

Some also argue that as Betts gets older (he turned 30 in October), a move away from the outfield would be easier on his legs, though I don’t see how all the start-stop, back-and-forth movement of the infield and the peril of turning the double play in the face of an oncoming runner isn’t as rough as gliding along in the outfield.

Regardless, none of this justifies moving perhaps the best defensive right fielder in the world from his position, especially when his laser throwing arm would be wasted at second base. And that’s especially true when you consider that:

  • The Dodgers have more depth in the infield with Freddie Freeman, Gavin Lux and Max Muncy, plus rookie Miguel Vargas and probably Justin Turner assuming he comes back at a slighter salary) than they have in the outfield.
  • Moving Betts to second base doesn’t solve their vacancy at shortstop, which Lux doesn’t seem equipped to play full time.
  • If you’re going to move an outfielder to the infield, Taylor makes way more sense.

Nevertheless, someone got this Betts-to-infield premise and ran with it, logic be damned. If you hear more about it, just know that it’s as crazy as it sounds.

 

The fates of Clayton Kershaw and Justin Turner

In the land of Los Dodgers today, these noteworthy things happened. The Dodgers extended qualifying offers to All-Stars Trea Turner and Tyler Anderson — which is a guaranteed contract for 2023 at S19,650,000 (and not a dollar more). They did not extend such an offer to Clayton Kershaw. And finally, they paid Justin Turner a $2 million buyout so that they wouldn’t have to pay him $16 million for next season.

If you think that means Trea and Tyler are locks to be in Los Angeles next year while Clayton and Justin aren’t … well, let’s turn to our friend George again.

Major League Baseball can be pretty confusing if you aren’t in sync with its rhythms, so here’s why the moves above might mean the opposite of what they seem to signify.

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Check out the new Slayed by Voices

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I am expanding the site to a wide variety of topics that are of interest to me that I hope will be of interest to you — at least, that’s the way it’s worked on Dodger Thoughts before. You can check out the first two new posts here and here. It basically takes my approach to the Dodgers and applies it to any number of topics (including the Dodgers, but so much more). 

At the risk of sailing right into the storm of Newsletter Fatigue, I am planning to charge $5 per month for a subscription. That’s why Slayed is at Substack and not here. The project breaks my 20-year history of blogging for free, but you know … it’s almost free. I’ll probably introduce a discount for an annual subscription. 

You guys are my core audience, and I really, really hope you’ll join me in this new endeavor. I truly think it will be rewarding. Please check out a post and click a subscribe link — it’s free for now, after all — and please share with anyone you can. I’d be so grateful. 

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