Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers Reportedly Agree to 1-Year, $17M Contract

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Clayton Kershaw isn’t going anywhere.

The eight-time All-Star agreed to a one-year deal to return to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday, pending a physical according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.

Kershaw’s deal is worth $17 million plus incentives, according to MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. 

The reported deal came down just one day after the Major League Baseball Players Association and MLB agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement, which ended the lockout.

When healthy, Kershaw continued to pitch like an upper-tier starter in 2021. He went 10-8 with a 3.55 ERA and 3.00 FIP in 22 appearances, per FanGraphs. He also averaged 10.65 strikeouts per nine innings, his best number since 2015.

Injuries were once again a problem for the future Hall of Famer, though. He was placed on the injured list because of inflammation in his left forearm and missed nearly all of July and August.

Kershaw returned to the mound for a 5-1 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sept. 13, but the injury resurfaced and knocked him out for the entire postseason. It was an underwhelming conclusion to another productive year.

Compared to when he won three Cy Young awards over four seasons, the 33-year-old’s skills have diminished slightly. What that translates to is a .219 expected batting average and .368 expected slugging percentage, according to Baseball Savant. He also finished in the 94th percentile in whiff rate (34.6 percent).

In terms of his value going forward, Kershaw’s age and durability are obvious considerations. He hasn’t hit 30-plus starts since 2015, with a series of minor injuries knocking him for brief stretches.

Per Baseball Savant, his sweet-spot (31.7) and hard-hit (37.3) percentages were also his highest since tracking began in 2015.

Kershaw is one of the greatest pitchers of his generation, so he’s bound to age more gracefully than many of his peers. His performance over the last few years is a testament to that.

His pitch repertoire should help in that regard, too. He has never relied on overwhelming velocity, and he owns a pair of devastating breaking pitches in his curveball and slider.

Ross Stripling was teammates with Kershaw for four-and-a-half seasons with the Dodgers. He was a guest on an episode of FanGraphs Audio and provided some insight on why the left-hander has been so dominant.

“He has the same intensity and conviction on pitch one and on pitch 110,” Stripling said. “And there’s an aura around guys like Clayton. They can instill fear into a lineup because of the success they’ve had, and from the intensity they bring.”

Stripling added that Kershaw’s fastball and slider can be almost unhittable when paired together:

“The slider is his bread and butter. He’ll throw it any time, whereas you never see him throw his curveball when he’s behind in the count. His curveball is a put-away pitch almost exclusively. But his slider… especially if you go back to vintage Kershaw—MVP/Cy Young Kershaw—he’s going glove-side fastballs, with sliders off of that. That’s the one-two combo that he’ll eat lefties and righties up with all day.”

If Kershaw showed signs of a major decline, then the Dodgers may have had a dilemma on their hands. Sometimes franchise legends have to be jettisoned when a front office is trying to maintain a championship-level roster.

But the ball seemed to firmly be in Kershaw’s court. In addition to being one of the best aces in Dodgers history, he’s a pitcher who can compile 3.4 WAR despite missing roughly a third of his starts. Sentiment didn’t have to figure into the equation to continue penciling him into Los Angeles’ rotation in 2022 and beyond.