Mookie Betts admonishes ‘completely false’ position switch rumors

Mookie Betts’ closed-door meeting with Dave Roberts and Andrew Friedman sparked a lot of rumors.

Following the Los Angeles Times reporting that Betts met with his manager and president of baseball operations following a 4-3 walk-off loss to the Colorado Rockies earlier this week, a lot of people ran with the idea that Betts — and more so the Dodgers — were considering moving the six-time Gold Glove winner back to the outfield.

After Teoscar Hernández made two costly mistakes in right field, Roberts lamented the defensive effort — or more so, the lack of it — from a player who’s supposed to be an everyday fixture in the lineup. The problem is, the Dodgers can’t exactly afford to sit him. Hernández is second on the team in RBIs and tied for second in home runs. Shohei Ohtani isn’t moving off DH. So the only conceivable way to keep Hernández’s bat while masking his glove is sliding him over to left.

That leaves one obvious domino, which would be moving Mookie Betts back to right, where he won six Gold Gloves. And if that’s the move, the Dodgers could patch shortstop with Miguel Rojas, who’s played nearly a thousand games there, or Alex Freeland, who logged close to 300 at the position in the minors.

Moving Betts from shortstop isn’t ideal — it creates a new hole — but when Roberts publicly questions his right fielder’s defense, the speculation was almost inevitable. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

Or at least that’s what it looked like.

“People are making stuff up,” Betts said when asked about reports suggesting he might move back to the outfield. “Somebody’s in there just trying to be the first to report a story of their own. So, that’s completely false. I go in there to talk with Doc (Dave Roberts). Me and Doc have this mentor-father-son type relationship. I talk to him all the time about my swing and how it’s coming along, and this that, and the other. So, somebody in there was just kind of guessing and making stuff up. So, whoever made that up, you need to be careful with what you’re reporting. I was in there talking about my swing and how it’s coming along. That has nothing to do with going back to right field.”

To be fair, Kevin Baxter never said what was discussed in the meeting. Once he suggested a possible explanation based on the meeting he and the LA Times reported on, though, the story quickly took on a life of its own.

Betts never disputed the meeting or that Friedman was present to talk about his swing. What “shocked” him, though, was how quickly it turned into a narrative. It’s not the first time he’s had to push back on media speculation, but this time seemed to genuinely frustrate him.

“I understand reporters have to do their job, but you don’t have to spread lies,” Betts added. “You don’t have to make stuff up. Especially (because) I’m a very open and honest person. Just come talk to me and come ask me. I don’t appreciate things being made up. But it kind of is what it is.”