Mookie Betts wins 6th Gold Glove Award in right field

Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts won his sixth Gold Glove Award at the position on Tuesday, tabbed by managers, coaches, and a defensive statistical component as the best-fielding right fielder in the National League.

Betts also won Gold Gloves from 2016-19 with the Red Sox, and again in his first year in Los Angeles in 2020. Betts did not win the award in an injury-plagued 2021 season, though he was in the top three in the voting.

This season, Betts led National League right fielders in Total Zone Rating (+31), and ranked second in Defensive Runs Saved (+15), Ultimate Zone Rating (+12.5), and Outs Above Average (+5).

He also led all NL right fielders in the SABR Defensive Index, an amalgam of various defensive statistics that account for 25 percent of the award. The rest is determined by voting from league managers and up to six coaches from each team.

Betts in right field beat out Daulton Varsho of the Diamondbacks and Juan Soto, the Padres (and former Nationals) star who hit well enough to gain recognition for his fielding despite statistics and eyeballs suggesting he had no business being rated as one of the three best defensive right fielders in the league.

Tyler Anderson was the only other Dodger voted in the top three defensively at his position. But he lost out Braves left-hander Max Fried, who captured his third consecutive National League Gold Glove Award.

Anderson led all NL pitchers in the SABR Defensive Index.

Betts this year also won his fifth Fielding Bible Award, which selects one fielder at each position across MLB rather than in each league.

Betts is just the fifth outfielder to win at least six Gold Glove Awards before turning 30, with former Tigers great Al Kaline the only one of the other four to primarily play right field, like Betts.