Dodgers: Clayton Kershaw is Still the Ace of the Dodgers

Clayton Kershaw is set to enter his twelfth season in the big leagues with all of them coming as a member of the Dodgers’ rotation.  Despite lost velocity, Kershaw is still the ace of the staff.

In sports, one of the most underrated aspects of an athlete’s game is longevity.  Many stars have put together a small streak of dominant seasons, but what is truly remarkable is putting together double-digit seasons of excellence.  That is what Clayton Kershaw is in the midst of as he gets ready to begin his twelfth season with the Dodgers and at the big league level.

Despite his fastball losing velocity and averaging around ninety miles per hour now, Kershaw remains the ace of the Dodgers and a top ten starting pitcher in baseball.  MLB Network ranked Clayton as the seventh best starting pitcher in baseball and that is accurate since he finished last season with a 2.73 ERA and 1.04 WHIP which ranked him seventh and eighth in the league for both categories.

Many are quick to call Walker Buehler the ace of the Dodgers and while he should become the ace in the near future, he is not yet worthy of that title.  Buehler pitched 137 innings in the regular season last year and this year he will shoot for two hundred innings and his first full season in the major leagues.  In a game that has seen electric pitchers like Tim Lincecum fizzle out after a handful of seasons, Walker Buehler will aim for a Kershaw like streak of excellence.

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The word “ace” gets tossed around too easily these days.  It used to mean that if you were an ace, you were one of the best starting pitchers in baseball, a top ten pitcher and a workhorse who could be depended upon to take the ball every fifth day.  Aces are also expected to pitch deep into games going six or seven innings on average.  Nowadays it seems the word “ace” just means the best pitcher in a given teams’ rotation.

Clayton Kershaw has continued to re-invent himself, and last season he relied on his slider 41.9% of the time which was a career high and about the same percentage as the number of fastballs that he threw.  In 2019, it will be interesting to see what he comes up with but if there’s one thing we should know by now, it’s to never count Clayton Kershaw out.  It would not be shocking if he finished in the top ten for ERA and WHIP again this season.

There is no doubt that Walker Buehler has the best stuff of any starting pitcher in the Dodgers’ rotation, but next, he must prove he can pitch great consistently.  Finish one full season, then another, and before we know Buehler will have pitched four-plus seasons as a top rate pitcher in the game.  Then and only then, will he be the ace of the Dodgers.  Until then the ace of the Dodgers is still Clayton Kershaw.