Moving to shortstop is just the latest amazing accomplishment for Mookie Betts

This. Is. Not. Normal.

“True,” Betts said. “But I don’t view myself as a normal person, either. I see myself as a really good athlete who can do anything — especially on the baseball field.

“Going back to short, I think the learning process is really fun for me. I didn’t really get to express that when I was with the Red Sox.”

Betts actually started his Red Sox career as a shortstop, though there were early questions about whether his arm was light for the position. His initial performance at the position in pro ball was sufficiently disconcerting — three errors in his first game, six more in 13 games with the Lowell Spinners in 2012 — that he was shifted to second base, deferring to first-round shortstop Deven Marrero.

Betts played just once more at shortstop during his professional tenure with the Sox — a two-inning Arizona Fall League appearance in 2013 in which he committed an error.

With Xander Bogaerts clearly on track as the Sox shortstop of the future, there was little reason to shift Betts back there. And with Dustin Pedroia entrenched as the second baseman, Betts ended up moving to right field, the position where he won six Gold Gloves in seven years for the Sox and Dodgers.

At the time of his big league debut — June 29, 2014, almost 10 years ago — could Betts have imagined a return to shortstop a decade later?

“Hell, no,” he said. “Definitely not. It’s not that the Red Sox said anything, and this is not a shot at anybody, but there was a feeling that I couldn’t do it.

“There was that perception that I put on myself that I really couldn’t do it. They didn’t really take a whole lot of time to teach me how to do it, either. They may have had their reasons.

“I’m not saying anything negative about the Red Sox organization. They got me where I am today. But in my heart, I knew I could [play short]. In my head, there was the feeling that maybe I can’t really do it. I’m glad that I said in my heart that I could.”

That difference — between the head and the heart, between early-career self-doubt and mid-career conviction that anything is possible — crystallizes the evolution of Betts.

In his time with the Red Sox and even in the initial years of his tenure with the Dodgers, Betts was a relentless self-critic. Coaches and teammates were amused whenever he emerged from early batting practice or a bad at-bat by declaring himself a failure, awful, hopeless.

Others saw one of the best players in the game, dazzled by his far-reaching talent. But Betts seemed almost apologetic about his abilities and accomplishments, and obsessed with his self-identified shortcomings.

“That’s what kept me going — insecurity,” said Betts. “Coming up, I was always the smallest. I wasn’t ever really a top prospect until I came on the scene really quick. So there were always so many guys that were ahead of me.

“I was like, ‘Dang, I’ve got to be as good as this guy. I’ve got to do this. He’s hitting home runs, so I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to do that.’ I was busy trying to keep up with everyone.”

The exacting standards of the Red Sox fan base amplified Betts’s natural tendency to self-critique, and created a feedback loop that pushed him toward greatness.

“That’s one thing I really, really, truly appreciated about Boston,” he said. “They were hard. You had to show up ready to play every day. That little extra focus, that little extra pressure, that little insecurity of being scared that the fans are going to boo you if you don’t play well, that there’s no excuses about anything, I think that definitely helped shape the man I am today on the field and off.”

Betts readily and proudly acknowledges that he is now a different person. Most of the players he was chasing when he was coming up have retired — some after their own impressive careers. With seven All-Star appearances, one MVP award from 2018 with the Red Sox, and three additional MVP runner-up finishes, Betts has surpassed all of them.

He is no longer striving to catch players who once served as his reference points. Instead, he is striving to surpass his own standards — to challenge himself to do things that others can’t. The work to become a shortstop as a 31-year-old is part of that.

“I don’t know if it’s something anyone has really done,” said Betts. “I feel like this is uncharted territory.

“There’s nobody I can really talk to, nobody that can really understand where I’m at and what I’m going through — which is hard, because it’s always better if you can talk to someone who’s been there and done that. But no one has been there and done that.

“So that’s hard, but it’s also neat being a pioneer. There’s a lot of people saying, ‘You can’t do it,’ or, ‘This is unheard of — he’s 31.’ Well, maybe when you were 31, you couldn’t do it, but don’t speak for me. That’s where I’m at.”

That outlook — and the joy and outward self-assurance with which Betts is playing — is striking to those who have seen him in both places. For that matter, it’s striking to Betts himself.

So how has he gotten to this point?

“I think my kids are really kind of what changed me, and how I learned to give myself grace, be my own biggest fan,” said Betts, whose children are 5 and almost 1. “They are going to mess up. They’re going to do stuff that may not be right.

“But you can’t tear them down. You have to build them up, and when they do something wrong, don’t yell at them. Just talk to them. I’ve been learning patience and I just applied it to myself.”

Of course, there are other sources of comfort. Betts understands that he does not need to look over his shoulder. He no longer wonders whether he’ll lose his job or get sent down if he struggles. In his fifth year with the Dodgers and fourth season of a 12-year, $365 million deal, he’s not playing for a contract.

To the contrary, he is reveling in the fact that he’s performing to — and arguably beyond — the expectations that led the Dodgers to sign him for what then seemed like a staggering sum. Is it possible that, at $365 million, he is still a bargain?

“I guess?” Betts chuckled, before his thoughts took an unprompted turn to his failed negotiations on a long-term deal with the Red Sox in the spring of 2019, which set in motion the team’s decision to trade him in 2020.

“There are still so many people that still don’t believe I wanted to stay in Boston,” he said. “I just don’t understand that. I have no reason to lie about it now.

“It’s a negotiation. Let’s have time and talk about it. I said something over here; you said something over there. There’s room.

“The perception is I didn’t want to stay. No — it’s a business. This game is fun, but it’s also a business.”

That, of course, is part of Betts’s past, no longer a subject upon which to dwell. Instead, as he acknowledges his desire to keep pushing to be worthy of an eventual spot in Cooperstown, he is taking delight in the idea that he has more to achieve.

“Even after I signed, I wasn’t like, ‘I’m set. I’m good.’ No. There’s more goals and more things I want to achieve,” he said. “I’ve got eight, nine more years left on the deal.

“I just made a move [to shortstop] at 31. You’d best believe I’m not about to stop. I’m going to keep going until they take the jersey off of me.”

Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him @alexspeier.