Mota played 20 seasons for the San Francisco Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates and Montreal Expos, as well as being a pinch hitting specialist with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He retired as a player at the age of 44. He was a coach for the Dodgers from 1980 through 2013. His 34 consecutive seasons as a Dodger coach is the longest in team history and the second-longest such streak in MLB history. Mota is currently a minor league hitting instructor and Spanish language television broadcaster for the Dodgers.

1963, he quickly established himself as one of the National League's premiere hitters. In six years with the Pirates, Mota appeared in 642 games and hit .297. On October 14, 1968, Mota was the second player selected in the expansion draft by the Montreal Expos. In 31 games, he hit .315. On June 11, 1969, Mota was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers (along with Maury Wills) Once in L.A., Mota became their number one pinch hitter and hit over .300 during the next five seasons.

On May 16, 1970, Mota hit the first batted ball in major league history to cause a fatality. The ball struck 14-year-old Alan Fish in the left temple. Four days later, Fish died of an inoperable head injury. In 1973, Mota was selected to the National League All-Star team after leading the league in batting average. From 1974 through 1979, Mota was continuously called upon for late inning heroics, where he averaged 10 pinch hits for six straight seasons. The Dodgers appeared in the 1974, 1977, and 1978 World Series. In 1979, he established his place in the record books by becoming the all-time leader in pinch hits. 

In 1981, Mota appeared in his fourth World Series, Mota retired as a player from the Dodgers after the 1982 season. He ended his playing career holding the all-time major league record for career pinch-hits (149), which has since been broken by Mark Sweeney and Lenny Harris, an overall lifetime batting average of .304, and a .299 pinch-hitting average (149-498) along with four home runs and 115 RBI in that role. His .315 batting average is second best (1,800 or more at bats) in Los Angeles Dodgers history, trailing only Mike Piazza's .331. 

Mota coached Los Angeles in the 1988 World Series, his fifth in Dodger uniform. He retired as a coach in 2013 to become a full-time broadcaster. Mota was inducted into the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum Hall of Fame on August 23, 2003.