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What’s Behind Mookie Betts’ 2026 Struggles?

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What’s Behind Mookie Betts’ 2026 Struggles?

Originally posted on Just Baseball | By Landon Baylon | Last updated Jun 19, 2026 2:47 PM ET

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Mookie Betts landed with the Los Angeles Dodgers ahead of the 2020 season and signed a 12-year, $365 million extension prior to the resumption of play in the COVID-19-shortened season.

It was a groundbreaking series of events in which a top-five player in the sport was both traded and signed to the richest extension at the time before even playing a game with his new team.

Betts went on to finish second in MVP voting and win the 2020 World Series, kicking off a five-year stretch of excellence in which he would slash .283/.373/.527 with Gold Glove defense, finishing top-five in MVP voting twice more and winning another World Series title.

Then 2025 hit, and Betts would begin the season out of commission with a stomach illness that caused him to drop to just 157 pounds.

It would end up being the worst season of Betts’ career, with career lows in all his triple-slash stats and his OPS dipping below .800 for the first time.

Stats recorded prior to play on June 18.

Mookie Betts’ Struggles Are Bleeding Into 2026

It’s been more of the same for Betts, slashing just .203/.266/.367 through 40 games in 2026. He missed the majority of April with an oblique injury and still hasn’t managed to find consistency, with hot and cold stretches.

His expected stats suggest he has been unlucky to start the year, having the biggest difference between batting average and expected batting average among qualified hitters by a large margin. Still, this is not the same Mookie Betts that we’ve come to know.

The Numbers Behind the Down Seasons

Betts has never been an elite raw power hitter, despite the gaudy home run totals he’s put up in the past, more so relying on consistent contact quality and desirable angles. Does it look like above-average play is still recoverable when taking a look under the hood?

Contact Quality

Here’s a look at his year-over-year underlying metrics from his near-MVP 2023 season to the current day:

Stat	2023	2024	2025	2026
xba	.288	.282	.267	.277
xslg	.572	.468	.422	.441
xwobacon	.408	.364	.330	.352
AVG EV (MPH)	92.4	89.9	89.1	89.9
Barrel%	12.4	6.0	5.5	8.7
Hard-hit%	48.5	39.5	35.8	37.0
LA Sweet-Spot%	42.5	39.3	37.7	44.2
Air-Pull%	28.4	21.4	23.9	22.5

What jumps out is his improvement compared to last season, raising his figures in nearly every metric, which continues to show how unlucky Betts has been in 2026. The numbers are more in line with his data from his All-Star 2024 season, where he posted a 140 wRC+.

Plate Discipline

Betts owns some of the best plate discipline in the league, running just a 19.9% chase rate paired with a 93.7% in-zone contact rate.

Against velocity, Betts is amongst the best as well, whiffing at just a 5.1% clip and slugging .575 against four-seam fastballs. Kyle Karros is the only other player to whiff at four-seams less than 6% of the time while slugging over .500 (min. 100 pitches).

On the other hand, sliders in particular have caused Betts increasingly more trouble:

Stat	2024	2025	2026
Run value/100	2.6	-0.2	-0.7
Whiff%	21.8	25.3	28.6
SLG	.657	.406	.308

Previously, Betts didn’t have many, if any, holes to exploit, but in recent years, pitchers have begun to attack him with more spin.

Still, projections continue to see Betts as a well-above-average hitter, with THE BAT X forecasting a 126 wRC+ through the rest of the season. A majority of Betts’ struggles can be summed up to poor luck, and regression to the mean is sure to take place as the season goes on.

Who Will Mookie Betts Be Going Forward?

While MVP form might be well out of reach for Betts, he continues to be one of the better defensive shortstops in the league, who can hit north of 20 home runs a year. It’s a 3.0 to 4.0 fWAR player when he gets the bat going.

It may be tough to swallow a $30 million yearly salary over the next six seasons for an already-declining player in his mid-30s, but there’s reason to believe that Betts can still provide an above-average bat and defense at a premium position for at least a couple more years.

Since he signed with the Dodgers, Betts has been part of three World Series-winning teams, made four All-Star teams, and finished top-five in MVP voting on three occasions. It’s a resume he’s built in Los Angeles that could land him in Cooperstown with a Dodgers logo on his hat.

This article first appeared on Just Baseball and was syndicated with permission.

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