GLENDALE, Ariz. -- With one of his worst offensive seasons behind him, Mookie Betts set out to do something he's never had to do in his dozen years in the big leagues: work on "rewiring" his swing.
For Betts, that meant getting back to basics. He sought to gain a deeper understanding of what he does well, working to build good habits with his mechanics that could help him avoid the kind of extended offensive slide he found himself in for much of last year.
"Instead of just trying to fix problems," Betts said, "I was able to go back to what I do best and really groove those patterns instead of trying to fix old patterns."
Betts didn't put his work to the test in game action until Sunday afternoon, when he went 0-for-2 with a run scored in the Dodgers' 4-3 win over the Angels. While he is often among the first of the Dodgers to get out on the backfields at Camelback Ranch, he was the last of the healthy lineup regulars to make it into a Cactus League game.
It wasn't for health reasons, but rather load management. While it may seem rather early in the year to have workload concerns, the Dodgers aren't just taking this spring into consideration. They're accounting for two taxing, yet rewarding, World Series runs.
"I wanted Mookie to start a little bit later as far as not getting into Spring Training ready to go," manager Dave Roberts said, "and kind of use Spring Training to build up, given it's six weeks."
For the Dodgers who are not participating in the World Baseball Classic, this is their first normal spring in a long while. The past two camps were shortened due to the season-opening series in Seoul in 2024 and Tokyo in '25. And if there is any downside of winning back-to-back World Series, it's that their offseason is a month shorter than that of most other teams.
On top of that, Betts had an all-around trying '25 campaign. He contracted a stomach illness at the end of Spring Training and lost around 18 pounds in the span of two weeks. He was able to put the weight back on, but he later admitted that it impacted him as he slumped through the first two-thirds of the season.
At one point in early August, Betts declared his season over. He had accepted that it would go down as the worst offensive year of his career. But he turned a corner not long after, and now, he has a different perspective on the season that was.
"I was upset, until I was able to help the team, until I was able to help the boys. Then I was fine," Betts said. "But before that, I was really upset. Not with the numbers, per se, but not being able to help. Not doing my job, carrying my weight. So once I was able to do stuff, especially later on in the season, I was able to just kinda take a step back and say, ‘You did pretty good.’"
Betts slashed .258/.326/.406 with a 104 OPS+, overall numbers that were bolstered when he hit .317 with an .892 OPS in his final 47 games. But he was inconsistent at the plate in the postseason, leading Betts to go through his "rewiring" process in the offseason.
"I actually [enjoyed it] because I learned a lot about myself. I learned about how I operate," Betts said. "I was able to get in the right headspace and sustain the right headspace. And once I was able to get in the right headspace and stay there, I haven’t been searching."
A change in mentality helped Betts move forward when he was at the nadir of his 2025 season. He's looking to carry that same mindset with him moving forward.
"There's some growth part of it in the sense that he's done everything he can do individually, and now he's just trying to win championships," Roberts said. "The way he struggled last year offensively, but to put that aside to help us win, was most important."
Roberts has already predicted that Betts will not only get back to being a productive hitter, but that he'll put himself back in the MVP conversation at season's end. Betts expects no less from himself.
"That’s what I expect," Betts said. "I haven’t felt this way in a long time."