The New York chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America voted Mookie Betts as the winner of the 2024 Babe Ruth Award, which is presented annually to a player deemed postseason MVP.
Betts was formally recognized on Saturday night during the 100th annual New York Baseball Writers’ Dinner at the Hilton in Midtown Manhattan, where all 2024 BBWAA winners were celebrated.
The Los Angeles Dodgers also had winners in Shohei Ohtani, the 2024 National League MVP, and Freddie Freeman and his family receiving the Arthur and Milton Richman You Gotta Have Heart Award, which is presented annually to a member of the baseball community who has overcome difficult circumstances.
None of the three were in attendance, however. Ohtani recorded a video message for his NL MVP acceptance speech as he remained in Southern California due to being impacted by the recent wildfires.
Meanwhile, Betts is visiting Japan and recently surprised a group of students at an elementary school.
Betts being voted the Babe Ruth Award winner caps off a memorable year that saw him also play at an MVP-caliber level prior to suffering a fractured left hand upon being hit by a pitch.
Mookie Betts’ postseason stats
Betts was facing plenty of scrutiny and pressure heading into the 2024 postseason and he’d fallen well short of expectations in years prior.
He went hitless in the first two games against the San Diego Padres — albeit getting robbed of a home run by Jurickson Profar making a tremendous catch — but caught fire to help the Dodgers advance past the NL Division Series and eventually win the World Series by defeating the New York Yankees.
“I know he has the talent. Obviously he’s not afraid of the situation. So for me it’s more of just go out there and compete your tail off,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said during the NLDS.
“The last few, I think there was something that was bleeding into the mindset, which it’s up to all of us to make sure that he’s in a good headspace to go out there and compete and not get too worried about each particular at-bat. … I’ll have a little conversation with him.
“And the funny thing is you look at postseason performers, it’s not that they over-performed their career stat line in the regular season. What they’ve done is that they do what they’ve done in the regular season. But on that stage they’re considered postseason players.
“So in this particular case, all we expect Mookie is to be the same player he is in the regular season. And that’s it.”
Partly behind taking hundreds of swings each day and aided by Brent Honeywell’s intentional throwing strategy during live batting practice, Betts hit .290./.387/.565 with five doubles, four home runs, 16 RBI and 11 walks over 16 postseason games.
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