Icon Photo: Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire

The Dodgers ranked third in the majors in Defensive Runs Saved this season, which seems odd when you consider that they had negative Runs Saved at five different positions (pitcher, catcher, first base), but a few positional strengths and one big team factor can go a long way towards defensive success.

Here’s our scouting report on the Dodgers defense:

Strengths

Defensive Positioning

What makes the Dodgers’ defense so good is not so much the skill of their players but that their players are often situated in the best spots to make plays. 

We wrote that season almost exactly a year ago and it’s still true today. The Dodgers ranked second with 45 of their 67 Runs Saved coming from defensive positioning, including an MLB-high 35 from modified defensive shifts (ones in which the second baseman or shortstop is playing adjacent to second base).

Mookie Betts

In case you missed Thursday’s announcement, Betts won the Fielding Bible Award at shortstop. It’s his 7th Award, the most in the 20-year history of the honor, his first as a shortstop.

Betts had 17 Runs Saved which tied Taylor Walls for the lead at the position. He had fewer Defensive Misplays & Errors (16) than he did there in 2024 (19) despite playing more than 700 more innings at shortstop this season than last season. 

Betts was at his best at season’s end. He led all shortstops in Runs Saved in August and September combined and had 9 of his 19 Good Fielding Plays this season from August 8 on (9 in 45 games compared to 10 in his first 105 games). In fact, Betts had as many Good Fielding Plays in an 18-day span in August as he had all of 2024 (5).

Here are three pretty good ones.

Versatility

As is their norm, the Dodgers have all sorts of positional versatility available if they wish to use it. 

Tommy Edman has been playing second base, a spot where he has a pretty good history, but he’s also played third base and center field adequately this season, and could be used elsewhere if necessary. Likewise, Kike Hernandez has largely played left field this postseason but could actually play anywhere else without hesitation. Miguel Rojas, very good at second base when healthy, can play all four infield positions. 

And Andy Pages has started 10 games in center field this postseason but has finished 8 of them in right field and 1 in left field. The Dodgers have used Justin Dean as a late-game replacement in center repeatedly this postseason. He too has history at all three outfield spots. 

Pages has great stats with his arm in center field (and ranks Top 10 in average throw speed) but his range numbers aren’t good. They’re better in the corner outfield spots and he does do a good job of getting good jumps on fly balls.

Weakneeses

Freddie Freeman’s Range

Freeman is and has always been a very good scooper of throws at first base, but he had the worst Runs Saved specific to range of any first baseman this season (-10 Runs Saved). This was particularly evident on balls hit to his right, though there were a bunch of instances of pitchers failing to cover or being late to cover first base.

As long as Dodgers pitchers are attentive, this shouldn’t be too big an issue. But it’s something to keep an eye on as the series goes. 

 

Will Smith’s framing

Smith used to be one of the game’s top defensive catchers, but his pitch framing and pitch blocking numbers have been well below average in each of the last two seasons. Baseball Savant data shows him as getting fewer high pitches called strikes than most catchers, as well as fewer on pitches to his right side (inside to lefties, outside to righties). He’s decent at throwing out potential basestealers, which is the best thing he’s got going for him right now, though he’s not long removed from having a hairline fracture in his right hand. 

Something in-between

The running game

The Dodgers are a mixed bag when it comes to their pitchers controlling the running game. Opponents were 10-for-10 stealing against Tyler Glasnow in the regular season and 11-for-12 against Blake Treinen.

But they were only 6-for-11 vs Blake Snell, 7-for-12 against Yoshinobu Yamamoto, 4-for-8 against Alex Vesia, and 0-for-3 against Emmet Sheehan. And they only attempted one steal (successful) against Shohei Ohtani.

Keep in mind that the Blue Jays have attempted only one stolen base all postseason. We’ll see if they’re tempted to try to run at all in this series.