Brandon Gomes Reveals Reason Dodgers Moved Mookie Betts to Shortstop
As Gavin Lux continued to struggle in his return to shortstop, the Los Angeles Dodgers pulled the plug and switched Lux to second base while moving Mookie Betts to shortstop.
Though Lux and the Dodgers were planning for him to become the everyday shortstop, recurring issues in the field were too frequent to ignore. In particular, Lux struggled throwing to first base accurately. With 12 days to go before Opening Day, Lux had little time to correct the problem.
Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes opened up about the decision in an interview, explaining how the need to win and the regular season quickly approaching caused the team to make the move.
“The great thing about Mookie and just the mindset of this club is everybody is on board with winning. Winning is the top priority and knowing that these guys want to go out and compete and do everything we can to win a World Series is front of mind. As we went through this, it’s like, look, the clock is not on our side. We leave for Korea on Thursday and having conversations and knowing that everybody is on board, I think it gives us an opportunity to put the best offense out there and Gavin some time to get synced up in a position that he’s played more recently and we wanted to get Mookie to short to get some regular reps ASAP considering we open up in less than two weeks.”
— Brandon Gomes, via MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM
Since the Dodgers and San Diego Padres begin their regular season earlier than every other major league team, they have limited time to get their defense sorted out. The way Lux had been performing at shortstop might definitely cost the Dodgers wins and runs had it carried on into the regular season.
For a franchise that has a ton of pressure to win after all its offseason moves, the Dodgers could not afford to let one weak spot on defense linger. In order to get the most value of their personnel, swapping Betts and Lux sooner rather than later was the prudent move.
Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
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Wring decision. A major weakness on the Dodgers has been exposed. If they don’t fix this, we are going to lose 5-10 games this year because of our infield defense. It is already a problem at third, now the middle is looking unreliable. Rojas at short, Mookie at second. Lux can pinch hit, until he learns how to throw the ball on a line.
You don’t understand, Ohtani is DH and the Dodgers need Lux in the line-up because he bats lefty and hits well.
Playing every day. Everyday player. Sheesh. A little grammar never hurts.
The Dodgers’ websites are poorly organized and it is difficult to extract the info!