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Dodgers’ Mookie Betts Wins Major Defensive Award as Best Shortstop in MLB

Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Mookie Betts has won the 2025 Fielding Bible Award at the shortstop position.

The awards are voted on by a panel of experts who use “statistical analysis, the eye test, and any other factors that they wish to utilize” to determine the best defensive player at each position.

More news: Dodgers’ Mookie Betts ‘One of the Greatest Defenders of All Time’ Says Analyst

Betts is a Gold Glove award finalist in the National League at the shortstop position. The Fielding Bible Award chooses one player in all of MLB from each position. That player was Betts.

This is Betts’ seventh career Fielding Bible Award, and first at shortstop. He won five Fielding Bible Awards as a right fielder and one in 2023 as the “multi-position” award winner.

Betts made the unprecedented switch to shortstop this season, and led MLB with 17 defensive runs saved. He had six Outs Above Average, which put him in the 92nd percentile, per Baseball Savant.

After being named a Gold Glove finalist, Betts was asked about the feeling of validation after his transition.

“I genuinely don’t care,” Betts said. “That’s validation for y’all, not for me. I knew I could do it. I believed in myself. I always have belief in myself. But I genuinely don’t care (about the award).”

His manager Dave Roberts took the opportunity to praise the outfielder-turned-shortstop.

More news: Dodgers’ Dave Roberts Says Mookie Betts, Miguel Rojas Deserve to Win Gold Gloves

“I think the only person on this planet that believed that Mookie Betts would be in this conversation was Mookie Betts. And it’s just something that has never been done,” Roberts said. “I can’t even — it’s incredible. Obviously I’m at a loss for words that he’s in this position, where last year the confidence wasn’t there playing shortstop and kicking him out to right field to help our ballclub, to wondering if it was the right decision to put him at short, to now being a Gold Glove finalist, being so trustworthy.

“And I feel he’s very, very warranted in winning a Gold Glove. So to kind of add to his hardware. It’s pretty amazing. Hats off to Mookie.”

Betts can now add the Fielding Bible Award at shortstop to his collection. On Sunday, Nov. 2, the Gold Glove winners will be announecd.

Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

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