Dodgers: 3 reasons Clayton Kershaw holds keys to 2020 team success

1) Strength at the top

While the Dodgers roster doesn’t appear to have many holes, there are a few question marks, and one of those belongs at the end of the rotation. If a rag-tag group doesn’t prove capable of providing consistency from the mound this season, there will be even more pressure than usual on the team’s top starters.

After losing Hyun-Jin Ryu in free agency to Toronto, the top of the rotation belongs solely to Clayton Kershaw and Walker Buehler. Everyone expects Buehler to continue his progression to Ace status, but the title still belongs to the veteran Kershaw. He will need to provide the Dodgers with the same level of excellence he has brought over the past 12 seasons in Los Angeles in order to lead the team to the promise land.

Behind Kershaw and Buehler, manager Dave Roberts will look to David Price, Julio Urias and Alex Wood to fill out the rotation. By no means a group of terrible options, but there is plenty of uncertainty in projecting their 2020 performance. If a few of them falter, it will be up to the top guys to carry the load.

And the pressure falls particularly on Kershaw, considering Buehler still hasn’t even pitched 200 innings in the majors over his short career. It’s easy to assume Buehler will be the future Ace, but until he gets there, the number one starter status, the guy responsible for leading the rest of the rotation, belongs to Kershaw.

2) Veteran leadership

As different proposals have been leaked to the media about how the 2020 season could look, it has been revealing to learn how different players react to the reports. In general, the younger players, or players without families, seem ready to play, regardless of the format. Whereas, the veteran players, or guys with young kids, are more reluctant.

Clayon Kershaw probably speaks for many veterans when he sounded off against the plan to put the entire league in a bubble in Arizona, separated from their families, in order to play the 2020 season. Kershaw doesn’t want to do that. He joked that he couldn’t imagine himself being stuck playing Call of Duty in a hotel room with Cody Bellinger in between games.

How does this relate to helping the Dodgers?

It’s a reminder of the importance of having a veteran voice in the locker room who can see the big picture and use his status to make sure everyone’s viewpoint is being considered.

There will be a lot of uncertainty entering the 2020 season, if MLB figures out a way to play, and the Dodgers need someone like Kershaw, who carries stature within the league and his own locker room, to keep everyone level-headed.

The Dodgers have a lot of veteran talent, but they also have young pleyers, such as Gavin Lux, Walker Buehler, and Dustin May, once he finds his way to the big club. Kershaw’s role in keeping the clubhouse together and setting an example for the young guys is more important than ever during these challenging times.

3) Yes, the playoffs

You can’t talk about Clayton Kershaw without mentioning the playoffs, something that I think is a bit unfair to his legacy.

As the Dodgers have maintained an extremely competitive roster, partially thanks to his unbelievable performance, year-in-and-year-out, they have had an overwhelming number of playoff chances. This both helps and hurts Kershaw, as his better performances are often times overshadowed by the bad ones, while he is also given more opportunities to erase the most ugliest of memories.

If the Dodgers want to finally get over the hump and win their first championship since 1988, they will need Kershaw to have his best performance of his career in the playoffs. They can hope David Price’s postseason experience shines through his 34-year-old body, or one of Julio Urias or Alex Wood surprises, on top of the strength of Walker Buehler.

But the Dodgers need Kershaw to be Kershaw, regardless of the month—and this season the months will surely look different along the way.

Hopefully, over a shortened season, if they space his starts out right, he will be fresher than ever entering postseason play, and can prove the difference in making the Dodgers champions.