{"id":91670,"date":"2024-12-09T21:16:28","date_gmt":"2024-12-10T02:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=91670"},"modified":"2024-12-09T21:16:28","modified_gmt":"2024-12-10T02:16:28","slug":"dodgers-mookie-betts-moving-back-shortstop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/12\/09\/dodgers-mookie-betts-moving-back-shortstop\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers All-Star Moving Back to Shortstop"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Los Angeles Dodgers are moving perennial All-Star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bettsmo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-12-09_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mookie Betts<\/a> back to shortstop in 2025, according to Fabian Ardaya of the Athletic. Dodgers General Manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gomesbr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-12-09_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brandon Gomes<\/a> made the announcement at the Winter Meetings in Dallas today. Betts had played some of 2024 at shortstop and struggled at times. He moved back to his more familiar position of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/08\/07\/dodgers-rojas-grove-il\/\" target=\"_self\">right field<\/a> after returning from a broken hand last August.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Mookie Betts is moving to shortstop, Dodgers GM Brandon Gomes said. Tommy Edman will largely play center field.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FabianArdaya\/status\/1866250607864250879?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 9, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Dodgers Moving Mookie Betts Back to Shortstop<\/h2>\n<h3>Moving Chess Pieces<\/h3>\n<p>Earlier this year, Los Angeles announced that Betts was moving back to the infield. Most speculation was that he would play second base and that the Dodgers were in the market for a shortstop. However, there weren&#8217;t many options to be had, and with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/a\/adamewi01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-12-09_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Willy Adames<\/a> being <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/12\/07\/sf-giants-sign-willy-adames-seven-year-deal\/\" target=\"_self\">signed<\/a> by the San Francisco Giants, it appears that Los Angeles will give Betts more time at shortstop.<\/p>\n<h3>Other Options<\/h3>\n<p>The Dodgers just signed <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/10\/21\/dodgers-win-2024-nl-pennant\/\" target=\"_self\">National League Championship Series<\/a>\u00a0Most Valuable Player <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/e\/edmanto01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-12-09_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tommy Edman<\/a> to a five-year extension. Edman <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/07\/29\/dodgers-three-team-trade\/\" target=\"_self\">was acquired<\/a> in a three-team trade in July. He split his time between center field and shortstop and played solid defense. However, it appears he will be the everyday center fielder going forward.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/l\/luxga01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-12-09_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gavin Lux<\/a> will stay at second base for now. There was some speculation that he could be traded if Betts moved back to the infield. The one-time top prospect is coming off his first full year in the big leagues after suffering a severe knee injury in spring training in 2023. He was slated to be the Opening Day shortstop before he got hurt, but he was moved to second base after having trouble throwing to first.<\/p>\n<h3>More Shuffling to Come<\/h3>\n<p>It remains to be seen what other moves the reigning World Series Champions make. What is certain is that the Dodgers will leave no stone unturned in an effort to improve themselves, especially if they want to remain on top.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Brad Penner-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Los Angeles Dodgers are moving perennial All-Star Mookie Betts back to shortstop in 2025, according to Fabian Ardaya of the Athletic. Dodgers General Manager Brandon Gomes made the announcement at the Winter Meetings in Dallas today. Betts had played some of 2024 at shortstop and struggled at times. He moved back to his more [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5226,"featured_media":91691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33,1071,35],"tags":[2055,250,3899,3174],"class_list":["post-91670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dodgers","category-mlb","category-news","tag-gavin-lux","tag-mookie-betts","tag-tommy-edman","tag-willy-adames"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91670"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91692,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91670\/revisions\/91692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}