The Los Angeles Dodgers will bid farewell to Clayton Kershaw, who announced Thursday that he will retire at the end of the 2025 season, concluding an 18-year career spent entirely with the franchise. Selected seventh overall in the 2006 MLB Draft, Kershaw made his major league debut on May 25, 2008, and has never worn another uniform. He becomes one of the rare modern players to spend his entire career with a single franchise.
Kershaw’s career is synonymous with relentless preeminence. He is an 11-time All-Star, three-time Cy Young Award winner, 2014 National League MVP, and two-time World Series champion (2020 and 2024). He holds a career 2.54 ERA, the lowest of any pitcher in the live-ball era since 1920, with 222 wins, 96 losses, 15 shutouts, and 3,039 strikeouts. His 78.7 WAR (FanGraphs) and 80.4 WAR (Baseball Reference) rank him as the Dodgers’ all-time leader in wins above replacement. Kershaw’s winning percentage of .698 tops all pitchers with at least 200 victories since 1900. He also threw a no-hitter in June 2014 against the Colorado Rockies.
Amid prospects to ply his trade elsewhere, Kershaw chose to be a Dodger throughout his career, a decision that reflects his loyalty and deep connection to the franchise.
“I wouldn't change that for anything,” he said about spending his entire career with the Dodgers, according to Matthew Moreno of DodgerBlue.com
From 2011 to 2015, Kershaw was the most effective pitcher in MLB, tossing 1,128 innings with a 2.11 ERA, 28.6% strikeout rate, 5.6% walk rate, and 47.4% ground ball rate. During that stretch, he earned 37.1 fWAR, more than any other pitcher. Injuries curtailed his innings later in his career, but he consistently maintained elite performance, posting sub-3.00 ERAs in most seasons from 2016 to 2019 and a 2.16 ERA across ten starts in the shortened 2020 season. He has recorded a 3.53 ERA over 102 innings this season, even with his strikeout rate falling to 17%.
However, Kershaw’s postseason record isn't as impressive as his regular-season record, with a 4.49 ERA across 194 1/3 innings, which shows the challenges he faced in October compared with his regular-season dominance. Nonetheless, his leadership, work ethic, and adaptability have been lauded by teammates and managers. His pitching style, built on deception, movement, and velocity changes, allowed him to remain effective even as his fastball velocity declined in later years.
Financially, Kershaw’s 2014 seven-year, $215 million extension remains one of the largest guarantees for a pitcher. He later signed a three-year, $91 million deal covering 2019–2021, breaking the $30 million average annual value barrier for pitchers at the time.
Off the field, Kershaw is a devoted family man with four children and a fifth on the way. He and his wife, Ellen, have engaged in humanitarian work in Africa and Los Angeles. Kershaw also has a personal connection to Los Angeles, having grown alongside local athletes like Matthew Stafford during his youth in Dallas. Kershaw’s eventual retirement will ensure he enters the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, with a Dodgers cap on his plaque.
