‘The appropriate time’: Why Clayton Kershaw is Able to Name it a Profession

LOS ANGELES — Clayton Kershaw gave himself time to change his mind throughout the year, but the Dodgers’ all-time strikeout leader knew.

He knew before he embarked on his 18th big-league season, all spent with the same franchise, and he knew even as he thrived amid a resurgent campaign coming off two offseason surgeries. 

He definitely knew by Thursday afternoon, when the 11-time All-Star soaked up another opportunity to play catch and throw batting practice to his 8-year-old son, Charley — a righty, unlike his father — on the field at Dodger Stadium before making an announcement that many of his teammates had already been anticipating. 

“I’m going to call it,” Kershaw declared. “I’m going to retire.”

Before Kershaw entered the press conference room at Dodger Stadium and spoke for 15 minutes, his wife, Ellen, stood in the back of the room with their four kids. She was content to remain where she was until Freddie Freeman insisted she move up. Kershaw got through a couple minutes of his speech before choking up when he got to talking about his teammates, who were scattered throughout the room, and his wife and children, who were now sitting in the front row. 

“I’m really not sad,” the 37-year-old three-time Cy Young Award winner insisted. “I’m really not. I’m really at peace with this. It’s just emotional. I tried to hold it together. I told our guys not to make it weird today because I was going to get weird if you make it weird, and here I am making it weird.” 

It was a decision Kershaw has grappled with each of the last few years as his family grew and his body deteriorated. He had opted to take one-year deals to remain in Los Angeles, knowing that every offseason would require a choice of whether to continue. He did not want to commit to pitching if he didn’t believe he could still be effective.

No pitcher has been better at preventing runs than Kershaw, whose 2.54 career ERA is the best mark of any qualified pitcher with at least 100 starts in the live-ball era (since 1920). Earlier this year, he became the 20th — and possibly the last — player in MLB history to reach 3,000 strikeouts. Among pitchers with at least 200 wins, none have a higher winning percentage than Kershaw, who is tied with Zack Wheat and Bill Russell as the longest-tenured player in franchise history. He threw a no-hitter in an MVP season in 2014. 

“I don’t know if you can put another person’s career, that I can think of, against his,” Freeman said. “He’s the best pitcher of our generation, hands down.” 

Among pitchers who’ve thrown at least 2,000 innings in their careers, Kershaw is tied with Pedro Martinez for the best adjusted ERA in MLB history. 

Earlier this year, as Kershaw began to leave Truist Park following his 11th career All-Star appearance, Martinez made it a point to stop him and say a few words. 

“I’m going to be waiting for you in Cooperstown,” Martinez told him. 

The countdown to 2031 is now on. 

“I think he could keep going for a couple more years if he really wanted to,” Freeman said. “Guys that get to first base still go, ‘I cannot see the slider.’ And then he throws a 71, 72 mph curveball. I know he’s not throwing 94, 95 like when I was facing him anymore, but he still knows how to pitch. He’s the best to ever do it.”

Over the last 10 years, injuries to Kershaw’s back, elbow, biceps, shoulder, knee and foot — the last three of which have required surgical procedures — threatened to end his career prematurely. But they also gave him a better appreciation for every chance he got to take the mound, chipping away at his hardened exterior — at least on the days he wasn’t pitching. 

He remained motivated to continue, even without the overpowering stuff that will soon make him a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Using the same iconic motion he learned from Skip Johnson, as if his hands and legs were on a string, he continued finding ways to limit damage. Since turning 30, Kershaw has produced a 2.91 ERA over the last eight years. 

“Adapt,” he once said, “or die.”

Kershaw is adapting again in a season in which his team still needs him. His curveball does not devastate the way it did when Vin Scully dubbed it “Public Enemy No. 1” in a spring game before his debut 2008 season. The fastball he once blew by hitters now registers in the high-80s in velocity. The slider he added early in his career, the one that helped turn him into a generational force, has become his go-to offering. He has started to implement a splitter now, too, after years of refusing to implement an offspeed offering for much of his career. 

He has a 10-2 record and a 3.53 ERA through 20 starts this season. 

“I know he doesn’t throw as hard as he used to, his stuff might not be the same, but you can never take that competitiveness and fire out of that guy,” said Max Muncy. “He’s gonna find a way to get it done, and that’s what he’s done this year.”

The success hasn’t made Kershaw question his decision. 

“Usually we wait until the offseason to kind of make a final call, but I think almost going into the season we kind of knew that this was going to be it,” Kershaw said. “So, didn’t want to say anything in case I changed my mind, but over the course of the season, just how grateful I am to have been healthy and be out on the mound and be able to pitch, I think it just made it obvious that this was a good sending off point, and it is. 

“I’ve had the best time this year. It’s been a blast.” 

Role in October? ‘I’ve got a job to do’

On Friday, Kershaw will take the mound for his 228th and final regular season start at Dodger Stadium. If he goes more than two innings, he’ll have logged the second-most innings of any Dodgers starter this year. 

What happens beyond that remains to be seen. 

The rest of a deep Dodgers rotation that includes Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Shohei Ohtani and Tyler Glasnow is whole, making Kershaw’s place on the October roster unclear at this point, though manager Dave Roberts still believes there’s a role for Kershaw, who was aware of the circumstances when he decided to announce his decision now.  

On Thursday morning, Kershaw sent a text to his teammates letting him know this year will be his last. In private over the last couple months, he had already informed many of them that he planned to retire. Freeman made sure to get a jersey signed from him. 

“Obviously we have another month to play and we have a lot of great pitchers, so everybody’s role is kind of up in the air at this point, so I just didn’t want this opportunity to pass by,” Kershaw said. “It just kind of felt like the right thing to do.”

While Muncy said the Dodgers don’t need any more inspiration for October, he added that it would be nice to get Kershaw another ring on his way out. 

In 2020, the burden of years of playoff shortcomings had finally been lifted off Kershaw’s shoulders. In the aftermath, he felt relief. Roberts’ favorite memory of Kershaw is the left-hander emerging from the bullpen with his teammates, running onto the field with his hands raised toward the sky after his team finally finished the job. 

“I wanted it so bad for him, given everything that he went through in years prior,” Roberts said. “And so for him to finally be a champion, that was like the last box that he needed to check.” That kind of visual for me is something that I’ll always remember.”

From there, every season became a question of how long to continue. He was unable to pitch in the 2021 postseason due to an elbow injury. In 2023, he was severely limited by a shoulder injury that would eventually require surgery. He kept coming back.

In 2024, he was hindered by foot and knee problems that prevented him from participating in the postseason, but he was still moved to tears while speaking at the team’s championship’s parade. This time, the feeling was only one of joy and gratitude. 

He declared himself a “Dodger for life,” and now his decision to hang up the cleats will affirm it. 

“I think you could sense that he just wanted to go out on his own terms,” Freeman said. “And having the toe surgery, the knee surgery, everything he had that he dealt with last year, I think he wanted to make sure he came back and gave it one more run.”

Kershaw has savored every moment this year, even allowing himself to be mic’d up on the mound at the All-Star Game. Afterward, former teammates flooded him with messages telling him how much he had changed. 

“And they’re right,” Kershaw said. “I don’t think I would’ve ever done that.” 

But this year was different. He knew the finish line was approaching. 

Soon, he’ll have a lot more time to play catch with Charley, to attend his daughter Cali’s dance classes and to be around a family that’s still growing. Ellen is pregnant with their fifth child. 

On Friday, though, the routine continues for one of the greatest pitchers of a generation. 

“It’s good to get this out of the way today,” Kershaw said. “But I’ve got a job to do.” 

Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on X at @RowanKavner.
 

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