Mookie Betts, Dave Roberts dismiss 2025 concerns as Dodgers get new-look lineup

2025 was the worst offensive season of Mookie Betts' career by basically every metric. He was largely healthy outside of a brutal flu at the very beginning of the season that forced him to miss the Tokyo Series and led him to lose around 20 pounds, and his defense improve dramatically, but the bat was ice cold for a lot of the season.

Dave Roberts and the Dodgers tried a couple of things. Roberts dropped Betts down a place in the lineup, they kept making mechanical tweaks, they called on Betts' former Dodger/Red Sox teammate JD Martinez to try to help him out of his funk.

And Betts did look like his old self again throughout September, after resolving to let go of his concerns and just play baseball, but the previous four months were still spent in the doldrums.

But both Betts and Roberts are confident that the player is going to look like his usual self again in 2026, even as the Dodgers plan to drop him one spot further down the order.

When asked if Betts still had what it took to be an MVP-caliber offensive player, Roberts replied unoquivocally: "Absolutely."

Dodgers, Dave Roberts confident in a bounce back season for Mookie Betts in 2026

Betts later said, "I don’t care about none of that," referring to MVP conversations. "I just want to win. It ain't got nothing to do with me. Play well, cool. I don't, cool. As long as we win, that's all I care about. [...] I’m too old to be caring about stuff for me now, man," he said. "Life is not about me anymore."

Roberts was still insistent that Betts will be in the mix for MVP this year, though. "The way he played shortstop last year, and expecting him to be better offensively this year, he will be in the MVP conversation this year," Roberts said.

The Dodgers plan to reinstall Shohei Ohtani in the leadoff spot but will move Betts down to third to accomodate Kyle Tucker toward the top of the order. Freddie Freeman will bat fourth, so we might already venture to guess that he'll be the Dodgers' RBI leader this season.

Betts' .299 average and .900 OPS in September certainly lends some reassurance that Betts' new approach to the game will carry over into this new season. But also — he's Mookie Betts. No one was ever going to count him out entirely.