Clayton Kershaw contract: the factors that determine his decision

Time is coming for all of us, even for Clayton Kershaw, the best pitcher of his generation, the pitcher who finished outside the NLP's top 20 NLP vote, having voted only once 2011 to 2017. The southpaw was only 30 years old in March, the Kershaw we saw in 2018 was not the Kershaw of previous years, not even the Kershaw of the recent past.

His average fastball was 90.9 mph (he had averaged 93.1 mph in 2016), and he pitched the pitch at the bottom of his career 41% of the time. His small business and his new approach generated more contact – he shot only 11% of his throws. Even though he missed nearly as many injuries with his injuries in 2016 and 2017 as in 2018, the batters scored 15% of his shots in 2016 and 14% in 2017. From 2015 to 2017, only 26% of the bullets against him were hit hard; by 2018, this number has increased to 35%.

In any other season, Kershaw and his coaches should spend all winter thinking about the issue: studying extremely slow slow motion video and biomechanical data, working on an evolution, anything that could facilitate the transition that made it crack. .

But the way his game takes place outside of the season depends on a decision he has to make before 16:00. HE Friday: Will he withdraw from the last two years and $ 65 million from his contract and become a free agent? Or will he leave the market untested and stay a Dodger? Kershaw signed an extension of $ 215 million over seven years before the 2014 season, which included an option player (an "opt-out") covering 2019 and 2020, the sixth and seventh years of the deal. Both parties agreed Wednesday to extend the two-day withdrawal period until Friday afternoon.

Unsubscription, a common lever that maximizes leverage in player transactions, has not historically led to particularly agonizing decisions. As a general rule, the price of a leading player only goes in one direction, and withdrawals allow a player to take advantage of improving market conditions, provided that he has not fallen. Alex Rodriguez has retired from the last three years of his 10-year contract for $ 252 million during (memorable) 2007 World Series; because he had just finished a MVP season at age 31 and had not yet been tarnished by steroid claims, he thought it would mark an increase and extra years of coverage. He ended up getting this deal from the same Yankees that he left, signing a new $ 275 million deal over 10 years six weeks later. Sometimes, however, players decline and it is not worth testing the market. Jason Heyward's deal with the Cubs before 2016, worth $ 184 million and worth $ 184 million, included unsubscribing for this and the next season. Since arriving in Chicago, however, Heyward's career has been fierce: he is no longer an average league hitter. He can not in any case give up the case.

Kershaw's position is more delicate. On the one hand, the market is softened for all, with the exception of the best free agents, players at five or six wars. He is no longer that; it is declining. But it is declining from a height that few casters reach, and there is no real way to know the rate at which its fall will continue. He is considered one of the most demanding workers in the game, so he is not likely to fall. (Metaphorically, or literally.) At the same time, however, given the importance he places on his routines, it is hard to imagine him dramatically changing his training regime.

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However, he is already rethinking his approach against the batters to counterbalance the decline of his body. Of the pitchers who have launched at least 160 rounds this year, only brewer Jhoulys Chacin has launched a higher slider percentage than Kershaw's 42%. In the second game of this year's LNDS against Atlanta, which was his first start in the playoffs, and a very good one, Kershaw actually threw more sliders than fastballs. Although he eliminated only three batters, he left the Braves rappers unbalanced all night. He looked like a southpaw Greg Maddux, scoring eight scoreless innings in just 85 shots. He was not as efficient as the rest of the playoffs, averaging 4.20 points in 22 innings (four starts, a raised appearance), but his transformation is clearly underway.

The teams now have to figure out where they will be in three or four years. If he retired, he would likely look for a five or six year contract, even with a lower annual salary than he is currently earning. (I guess he would not want a much shorter deal, otherwise he would probably be better served trying to extract one of the Dodgers, and even if he retires, that may be the answer.)

What would be the price of its services in an open market? Former Kershaw teammate Zack Greinke became a free agent at age 32 after the 2015 season – he retired from the last three years of his contract with Dodger – and won a $ 206.5 million contract over six years in Arizona. Greinke, however, had just completed a year of phenomenal walking, and such a course is probably beyond Kershaw's reach given his back problems and his declining business. (Not to mention: the guys who got this deal with Greinke were fired after this season.) Five years and $ 130 million, or six years and $ 145 million, is a more reasonable forecast for his market.

If it's the baseball field that Kershaw and his agent think about Wednesday night, does that move them? It could; he could double the money he was guaranteed to receive despite the wave of old age and injuries, nothing important. Should it? I am not able to know what Kershaw and his family want for their future. But 65 million dollars are in themselves a considerable total, and provided he passes well in a jug of finesse, his services will still be in high demand after 2020. Maybe he will bet on himself! And, hey, if the unthinkable happens and his body fails completely, there is a worse fate in life than being a leftist legend of Dodger whose career fate is finished way too early. He can ask the guy in the first row of Dodger Stadium.