Betts, Freeman earn All-MLB First Team honors

LOS ANGELES -- The top of the Dodgers’ lineup in 2023 featured one of baseball’s best one-two punches in Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. Now, they’ve been recognized among the best in the Majors, period.

Betts and Freeman were selected to the 2023 All-MLB First Team, as announced Saturday during the reveal show on MLB Network. Half of the determination came from a fan vote, while the other 50% was a baseball media panel vote, with 72 position players and 50 pitchers to choose from.

• Past All-MLB winners

This marks Betts’ fourth All-MLB selection. He was named to the First Team with the Dodgers in 2020 and ’22 and made the Second Team while with the Red Sox in ’19, the first year of the initiative. Freeman has made the First Team once before, during his ’20 NL MVP campaign, and was on the Second Team in ’19, ’21 and ’22.

Betts is coming off his best season since 2018, when he won the AL MVP Award. He had a slash line of .307/.408/.579 with a 163 OPS+ and set a career high with 39 homers while making history by recording 107 RBIs out of the leadoff spot. Those efforts earned him his third Silver Slugger Award.

Freeman slashed .331/.410/.567 with 29 homers, 102 RBIs, a 161 OPS+ and an MLB-leading 59 doubles, one shy of the first 60-double season since 1936. He led all Major League first basemen with 23 stolen bases, a career best.

Betts and Freeman were both in the NL starting lineup during the 2023 All-Star Game. They finished second and third, respectively, in NL MVP voting this year, coming behind unanimous winner Ronald Acuña Jr., who joins Betts in the First Team outfield.

New Dodger Shohei Ohtani also made the cut for the First Team -- twice, in fact, as both a designated hitter and a pitcher -- though that was as an Angel. It’s his third time making the First Team as a hitter (2021, ’22), but his first time making the First Team as a pitcher, after having made the Second Team in that role each of the past two seasons.