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

Always a key piece for the Los Angeles Dodgers, the challenges associated with a potential 2020 season make Clayton Kershaw more important than ever.

The Los Angeles Dodgers roster is pretty stacked heading into the 2020 season, whenever it gets here (and hopefully it does soon).

Saying one player holds the keys to the team’s success seems a bit much considering the overwhelming amount of talent available to manager Dave Roberts every night.

While one player might not dictate whether the Dodgers make the playoffs or not, there could be an individual star who proves the difference between suffering another disappointing ending to the season versus winning a championship.

And Clayton Kershaw is the difference maker on a Dodgers team primed to compete for a World Series title this season.

Kershaw remains the Ace of a starting rotation that has some question marks in the back-end. He provides crucial leadership during what will certainly be a challenging season in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic. And he will hopefully shake off his playoff ghosts to lead the team to their first World Series title since the days of Gibson and Hershiser.

Let’s discuss why Kershaw is so important to the Dodgers’ success in more detail.

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.