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LOS ANGELES – Clayton Kershaw and the Los Angeles Dodgers have agreed on a three-year extension that will prevent the biggest pitcher of his generation from venturing into the free agent market.
The agreement plans to pay $ 93 million plus incentives to the 30-year-old southpaw, a source told ESPN on Friday.
The new contract replaces the two years and the remaining $ 65 million of Kershaw's $ 215 million seven-year extension signed in January 2014. Kershaw was originally scheduled to withdraw from the deal on Wednesday, but both sides agreed Friday after midday.
At a press conference on Thursday, Dodgers baseball operations president Andrew Friedman called the interviews "continually enjoyable."
The new deal gives Kershaw a slightly lower average annual value than its former contract ($ 31 million instead of $ 32.5 million), but it earns another year and gives it the opportunity to earn more. The Dodgers, meanwhile, can retain the biggest pitcher in franchise history without engaging deeply in Kershaw's 30 years.
He will return to lead a rotation of the Dodgers that already looks deep, with Walker Buehler, Rich Hill, Alex Wood, Kenta Maeda, Ross Stripling and perhaps Julio Urias. Hyun-Jin Ryu is eligible for free trade alongside Manny Machado and receiver Yasmani Grandal.
Kershaw has received three Cy Young awards, a most valuable player award and seven all-star trips in his first 11 seasons.
Few people throughout history have been better, even at a time when pitching dominated the league. Only 13 throwers have completed at least 2,000 rounds and have a career career record that is lower than Kershaw's (2.39). None of them has gone beyond the 1927s. Of the 30 after him in the rankings, only one went beyond the 1930s.
But it was these prowess of the regular season that made his overall playoff performance so disappointing.
Kershaw compiled an ERA of 4.32 in 152 playoff heats, a substantial sample littered with exasperating ups and downs. The difference between Kershaw's EAR for the regular season and the EAR in the playoffs is the second highest among those with at least 50 innings in the playoffs, followed by the former Tim Wakefield, the knuckleballer of the Boston Red Sox.
His last start was the last game of the Dodgers in the 2018 season, when he allowed four points in seven innings and was defeated by David Price of the Red Sox in the fifth game of the World Series. Kershaw's fastball averaged only 90 mph this Sunday night, a snapshot of the decline caused by an exorbitant workload and three consecutive seasons of back injuries.
Asked about Kershaw's value earlier this week, Friedman said: "He had the most impact possible on an organization in terms of success, not only in the field, but from a point of view cultural, raise young pitchers and imitate the work ethic, motivation. "
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