Mookie Betts ready to run in larger Dodger Stadium outfield

It’s anyone’s guess as to when Mookie Betts will finally make his home team debut at Dodger Stadium, but the star outfielder is excited to spread his wings over the large dimensions.

Mookie Betts has been the enemy at Dodger Stadium.

As a visitor with the Boston Red Sox, the right fielder roamed the outfield in the 2018 World Series, as well as during three interleague games in 2016. His regular season numbers (6-12 with one home run) are better than his postseason results at the plate (1-15), although his lone World Series hit was a pretty big one, a home run off Clayton Kersawh in the sixth inning of Game 5 to extend the Sox lead to 3-1.

Hopefully, we will find out soon enough how Mookie’s numbers at the plate translate to Dodger Stadium over a larger sample size.

But what about his fielding? What makes Betts such a special baseball player is that he can do it all. He hits for power, he hits for average, he runs the basepaths, and he knows how to catch anything hit his way. The four-time Gold Glover made right field at Fenway Park his home throughout his career, a unique outfield dimension relative to where he will eventually play at Dodger Stadium.

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When asked by David Laurila of FanGraphs if he thinks there will be anything different to consider in roaming the cavernous outfield of Dodger Stadium, Betts shrugged it off by saying, “Off the top of my head, I think it will be much the same.”

However, he added this little nugget that makes me excited to see what he can do: “There will be a lot of ground to cover, but that’s something that’s easy for me. I can just turn around and run,” Betts told Laurila, “because I don’t have to worry about a wall, or anything like that.”

At Dodger Stadium, there’s no more short porch to constrain the superstar athlete from spreading his wings to fly. To illustrate the difference between playing right field at Fenway Park vs Dodger Stadium, we can use Statcast data.

While the data is aggregated across all parks, we know the numbers are heavily weighted towards each player’s home park. Last season, Betts average starting position in terms of feet from home depth was the sixth shortest among right fielders at 286 feet. League average is 295 feet, or nearly ten feet deeper. Cody Bellinger usually started each play 289 feet from home plate, or three feet deeper than Betts.

When the difference between a catch and a base hit is sometimes only one extra step, taking three extra feet to position yourself in the outfield is pretty significant in terms of the added ground you might need to cover. It also illustrates the restrictive right field dimensions of Fenway Park.

For Mookie Betts, it creates an opportunity. The shallow right field at Fenway cut the field off at 302 feet in the corner. Dodger Stadium extends to 330 feet. While the former Red Sox will need some time to learn how to adjust to these different dimensions, he will finally be able to open up his speed to chase down fly balls that would have turned into home runs in Boston.