left handed Clayton Kershaw According to the Dodgers’ announcement, they will retire after the current campaign. His last regular season start at Dodger Stadium will be on Friday.
“I congratulate Clayton on his career and thank him for providing many moments to Dodgers and baseball fans everywhere, as well as all his profound charitable efforts,” Dodgers said in a club press release. “His career is a true legendary career and we know it will lead to his induction in the Baseball Hall of Fame.”
In the next few weeks, Kershaw will end a certain Fate Hall career. He will spend the entire span with a club, an increasingly rare phenomenon in today’s competitions. The Dodgers picked him with the seventh pick in 2006 and he has never been part of any other franchise.
By 2008, Kershaw had a solid enough debut in the Grand Slam. That year, he threw 107 2/3 innings for the Dodgers, earning 4.26 runs per 9. He took a big step forward the following year, taking ERA with 2.79 in 171 frames. In terms of workload in 2010, he reached 204 1/3 innings, and another 2.91 ERA took another step forward.
From there, he started the most powerful game of his career and the best of all pitchers in the modern era. From 2011 to 2015, he threw at least 227 innings in four of the five sports. The exception to loneliness was in 2014, with shoulder strain limiting him to 198 1/3 innings. Over those five years, he threw 1,128 innings with a strikeout rate of 2.11 ERA, 28.6% strikeout rate, 5.6% walking rate and 47.4% ground ball rate. Fangraphs attributed a 37.1 victory in this range to 37.1 wins, with more than 7 wins per season. That was the easiest thing in that extended Grand Slam event. Félix Hernández Ranked second, 26.2 fwar.
From there, the injury limits Kershaw’s quantity production, but the quality remains. He never played 180 innings in a season, and the back issue is a recurring theme, but still keeps his ERA in the 2.00 to 3.00 range for the most part. Although this is one step lower than his peak, he threw 140-180 frames at 140-180 frames each season from 2016 to 2019, never ending with an ERA of 3.03. He started with a 2.16 ERA in the 2020 season shortened.
Kershaw is one of the best pitchers, usually one of the best pitchers, fits in with the team’s golden age. It’s hard to believe now, because the Dodgers have been so good lately, but they have been spinning for a while in the early part of this millennium. They did not enter the playoffs from the 1997-2003 season, mostly hovering around .500. Things improved from there, but it was still not surprising. They entered the playoffs in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2009, but then missed for three consecutive years between 2010 and 2012.
But they entered the playoffs in 2013 and have continued to do so every season since. Assuming they end up taking a place here in 2025, that would be 13 consecutive seasons. There’s a lot of playoff heartbreak out there, but the Dodgers did win again in 2020 and 2024.
Recently, Kershaw’s injury absence has become even more obvious, as he is already in his 30s. In the 2021-2023 campaign, he was limited to 120-130 innings, although he still achieved good results on the basis. He only played seven games last year, initially blocked during offseason shoulder surgery, before his season was done with double surgery on his toes and knees to repair a ruptured sole plate and torn meniscus.
He was able to come back here in 2025 healthy and have a nice note. His strikeout rate dropped to 17%, but he managed to post a 3.53 ERA in 102 innings. As mentioned, he will start again tomorrow and may catch again as the Dodgers finish the season with a six-way road trip.
Kershaw has been a free agent several times and occasionally seems flirting with the idea of signing with his hometown ranger, but he always ends up back with the Dodgers. His first major payday was back in 2014, when he and the Dodgers agreed to extend the $215mm extension. This is still the biggest guarantee for extending the pitcher. The pitcher has only six free agent trades (Shohei Ohtani,,,,, Yoshinobu Yamamoto,,,,, Gerrit Cole,,,,, Stephen Strasburg,,,,, The biggest explosion,,,,, David Price) Go beyond guarantees.
The deal allowed Kershaw to opt out after 2018, but he and the Dodgers agreed to a new deal. A three-year, $91mm deal covers the 2019-2021 season, bringing him in Los Angeles, which is the first time a pitcher reaches 30mm with an average annual value. His subsequent deals were more modest for one or two years as he seemed to decide year by year whether he wanted to move forward.
Kershaw’s professional numbers are not final yet, because he has at least one game to go. As of today, he has 2,844 2/3 innings under this belt, with an ERA of 2.54, strikeout rate of 27.1%, walking rate of 6.3% and 46.7% ground ball rate. He scored 222 wins and 96 losses, 25 full games, 15 games and 3,039 punches. Fangraphs attributed him the 78.7 war to baseball reference, at 80.4. He also threw 194 1/3 of the playoffs with 4.49 ERA.
He formed 11 All-Star teams and won three CY Young awards. He was the most valuable player in the country in 2014, a rare feat for pitchers. He also lost an accessible one that year. He won the World Series in 2020 and 2024, although he was on the injured roster in his second title. MLBTR pays tribute to Kershaw during his outstanding career and wishes him all the best after the show.
Photo courtesy of Neville E. Wendell Cruz, Imagen Images
