Mookie Betts & Trea Turner win Silver Slugger Awards

Mookie Betts and Trea Turner won Silver Slugger Awards on Thursday, the first time the Dodgers had multiple winners in a 13 years.

Betts was tabbed as one of the three best-hitting outfielders in the National League, as voted on by league managers and coaches. Turner was tabbed as the top shortstop, the first Silver Slugger Award of his career.

Voting is done by managers and up to three coaches from each team. Louisville Slugger, the sponsor of the award that started in 1980, says votes “are based on a combination of offensive statistics including OPS, OPS+, home runs, RBIs, batting average, total bases and runs as well as the managers’ and coaches’ general impressions of a player’s overall offensive value.”

In his third season in Los Angeles, Betts hit .269/.340/.533 with 40 doubles and a career-high 35 home runs. He tied for the National League lead with 117 runs scored (along with teammate Freddie Freeman, among the top five finishers among NL first baseman in Silver Slugger voting), and ranked sixth in the league with a 146 wRC+.

Betts also won a Gold Glove Award on November 1. This is the seventh time a Dodgers player has won both honors in the same season. Betts, who also took home both trophies in 2020, joins Matt Kemp (2009, 2011) as the only Dodgers players to have two such seasons. The others to pull off the dual feat were Dusty Baker (1981), Russell Martin (2007), and Cody Bellinger (2019).

Turner hit .298/.343/.466 with 21 home runs, and led all National League shortstops in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, wOBA (.350), wRC+ (128), total bases (304), hits (194), doubles (39), and runs scored (101). He was second in RBI (100), stolen bases (27), and OPS+ (121).

Betts and Turner mark the first time the Dodgers have two Silver Slugger winners in the same season since Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier in 2009.

Freddie Freeman was the Dodgers’ best hitter in 2022, but has the unfortunate lot of being at first base, the same position as Paul Goldschmidt of the Cardinals, who was voted by players the NL’s Outstanding Player, is a top-three finisher in NL MVP voting, and now a Silver Slugger Award winner. Freeman led the majors in hits (199) and doubles (47), and led the National League in on-base percentage (.407) and runs scored (tied with Betts), hitting .325/.407/.511.

Will Smith batted cleanup most of the season for the NL’s best offseason, and led the league’s catchers in home runs (24), RBI (87), and doubles (26), hitting .260/.343/.465 with a 127 wRC+. The Silver Slugger award went to Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto, who hit .276/.342/.478 with a 128 wRC+, 22 home runs, 26 doubles, and 21 stolen bases.

Other Dodgers Silver Slugger “finalists” (who aren’t really finalists, but rather the top four or five at their position) were Justin Turner (voted on at both third base and designated hitter), and utility man Chris Taylor, the latter despite hitting .221/.303/.373 with a 92 wRC+.