Stay Healthy, Please: The Clayton Kershaw Thread

what's up

https://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/pitcher-spotlight-the-crack-in-clayton-kershaws-armor/

just came to post that story. something I've been noticing and dreading for a year or so now

Welp:

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/23664559/los-angeles-dodgers-ace-clayton-kershaw-mri-back-tightens-1st-game-back

All 20 of Clayton Kershaw's four-seam fastballs were 90.0 mph or slower in his outing Thursday night, according to ESPN Stats & Information. Last year, not a single one of his 1,142 four-seam fastballs was 90.0 mph or slower.

yikes

His back was giving him problems though. He probably returned too soon.

Seems like he is back for at least a month on the DL.

What a bummer.

Won his 150th this afternoon.

Hard to know where he's at right now. He hasn't been as dominant this year, but he has been surprisingly consistent. His WHIP and K/BB ratios are back where they were four or five years ago, before he started posting off-the-chart numbers; his ERA and ERA+ match his career line. In 18 starts, he's given four runs once, three runs twice, no runs twice, and all the rest were one or two runs--as I say, consistent. His average Game Score is 60; in his MVP year, it was 70. If he gets healthy and settles in where he is right now, that'd be fine; no longer the best pitcher in baseball, but consistently one of the five or six best. "If he gets healthy," though, contains a lot--he's had three abbreviated seasons in a row.

adjusting

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/clayton-kershaws-disappearing-fastball/

kershaw trivia: the only time his mouth is not hanging wide open is when he's delivering a pitch

off that point a bit, Morbs, it is interesting to see the top SPs in MLB this year and how the vast majority of them don't just have more strikeouts than innings pitched, but substantially more to what must be a historic degree. and Kershaw of all people is one of the comparative few from that group whose Ks are less than 9 per 9 IP.

He's been on the DL twice this year. Can't remember the last time he had a healthy season tbqh... 2015? or '13?

...posted in "Stay Healthy, Please: The Clayton Kershaw Thread" lol

I must bear the responsibility for putting the curse on him.

Kristen:
Kershaw has been trending downwards the past few seasons in terms of FIP, FB velocity, SwStr%, Hard Hit%, etc. Add his contract demands and is it possible his market won’t be huge after all?

Jay Jaffe:
His market may not even be bigger than the team that still has exclusive rights to negotiate with him. But the extended negotiating period signals that he’d prefer to stay, and I think it’s just a matter of finding the right number. The Dodgers are clearly comfortable paying a premium to keep him.

his hardest fastball in game five was 91 mph : /

Peak Kershaw clearly history, but can he still be a co-ace?

he's still pretty good, just not $35m good. especially if he's going to miss 6-10 starts each year. ehh, the dodgers can afford it

i think buehler's the ace now, tho

best decision from kershaw's perspective would seem to be extending his deal with dodgers, for sure. i'll be kind of shocked if he signs with any other team

i'm not writing Kershaw off quite yet, he's young and a guy like Verlander had his Cy Young peak, went through worse, and bounced back to peak form.

he's obviously no kershaw, but i'm interested to see what happens with bumgarner too. year and a half younger, but his peripherals have declined even more. the giants have a $12m team option for 2019 at the end of an *extremely* team-friendly contract and i don't think he'll get the contract, at age 30, that he was expecting three years ago

the giants should obviously trade him but they'll probably sign sabathia, bring back marco scutaro and give the boys one more shot

i think sabathia stays w nyy on some kind of mutual wakefield-type deal

I'd say Kershaw's back is probably more a drag on his effectiveness than losing some speed on his fastball. He still has top level control and movement.

I kinda think CC pitches, it will be for the Yanks or I could see Cleveland maybe reaching out to maybe finish career where it started.

@Ken_Rosenthal
Kershaw: “I am throwing slower. I know that. And I don’t know if that’s going to be for the rest of my career, either. I firmly believe that I can get that back and I’m going to spend a lot of time this off-season working on that.”

did anyone say how Verlander got his velocity "back"? cuz i'm not aware of that happening for anyone else.

this is baseball's greatest mystery for me -- i can understand how players can be faster than me, or make better contact, or hit the ball farther, etc. i don't understand how they throw so fucking hard

the astros have that reliever, josh james, who supposedly added 5+ mph to his fastball after getting his sleep apnea treated. i don't understand that either

Verlander's case was a weird one, maybe it was because the injuries he suffered during that time were more easily manageable? The core muscle surgery, the triceps strain...I'm no doctor, but maybe those are not so much the types of issues that'll have long-term effects.

knowing nothing at all, i'll just bullshit and say "it's all in the wrist"

did anyone say how Verlander got his velocity "back"? cuz i'm not aware of that happening for anyone else.

Health and mechanical tweaks.

xpost

And some other stuff.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2790162-the-road-that-brought-justin-verlander-back

three years, $93m

so he gets an extra year and $28m more guaranteed, will be a free agent following his age-33 season

the astros have that reliever, josh james, who supposedly added 5+ mph to his fastball after getting his sleep apnea treated. i don't understand that either

― mookieproof, Friday, November 2, 2018 11:53 AM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Body is less tired, muscles have more explosion, etc

Sleep apnea is shit.

yeah i have some sleep issues too but the specific correlation to a significant bump in fastball speed is astonishing

I have always wanted to be in a batter's box i just see how it feels like having a 100 mph ball coming towards you.

No idea where you live but most cages will have a machine that hits 90 or so.

it's not really the same. the old machines with the levers are better, but the ones with the two tires give you no sense of timing

at least you know it's probably not going to hit you . . . unless you have a sadistic coach who's torqued up the two wheels. rip jack heimbuecher

I'm a bit confused by the Kershaw deal -- the one extra year doesn't give him much security. Wouldn't he want to hit free agency a year earlier and stand a better chance at getting a good 3-4 year deal when he's 32, rather than 33?

I guess the logic is that if he opted out now, would he get 3-4 years for 100 million total (=what he'll get from the extension)? He must think the answer is no.

yeah i'm not sure he'd get a better deal, plus he and the dodgers love each other

three years, $93m

so he gets an extra year and $28m more guaranteed, will be a free agent following his age-33 season

― mookieproof, Friday, November 2, 2018 4:19 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

great deal for the dodgers, gives them an out to cut bait if he continues to regress. surprised kershaw took it

The shape of his career may mirror Seaver's, although the ages don't align precisely.

Seaver was dominant from '69 to '73 (age 24-28), great from '74 to '81 (29-36), and then he tacked on a few years where he was still reasonably effective relative to the league (37-41). There are some blips in there, but you can more or less identify three phases.

Kershaw's dominant phase stretches from 2011-2017 (age 23-29). Maybe last year was the beginning of his merely-great phase.

Sinking feeling he's going to take the Koufax parallels too far.
― clemenza, Monday, July 24, 2017 10:33 AM (one year ago)

http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/dodgers-clayton-kershaw-shut-down-indefinitely-due-to-undisclosed-arm-issue-manager-dave-roberts-says/

I want to strangle the guy who named this thread.

don't feel too bad, it happens to pretty much all of them. :(

Per Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times, manager Dave Roberts says Kershaw has ceased throwing after feeling that something was amiss following a bullpen session. Roberts termed it an "arm kind of thing" and gave no timetable for a return to throwing. Kershaw will, however, take part in his usual non-throwing workouts.

yikes, an arm kind of thing.

in the words of Jeff Sullivan, "Pitching is bad, don't do it."

well, his season debut is tonight. i would love to see him be able to have a couple more solid seasons

Yeah, I’m thinking of going.

There are at least two prominent historical precedents where guys recreated themselves and went from overpowering strikeout pitchers to...I don't know--location and guile: Luis Tiant and Frank Tanana. Must be others. If he can do that, maybe he can put in six or seven more productive years.

cc sabathia is a good example--obviously he never returned to his late '00s, early '10s heights, but he's been effective for the past few seasons.

Was surprised to see him go 7 tonight (I assume he won't be out for the 8th), but only 84 pitches.

Clayton Kershaw just became the most productive Dodger in history:

64.8 WAR Kershaw
64.4 WAR Sutton
63.4 WAR Sniderhttps://t.co/thNx6cFPvl

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) August 7, 2019

This is almost at the level of Babe Ruth hitting the home run for the hospitalized kid on the shamelessly cornball scale, but I got a kick out of it anyway.

https://www.mlb.com/cut4/dodgers-convince-fan-to-keep-playing-baseball