Why the 2021 Dodgers could have the greatest rotation of all time

3. Trevor Bauer gives Dodgers a truly special three-headed monster

Every starting rotation starts with its ace, and the Los Angeles Dodgers have three pitchers in the starting rotation who would be aces on nearly every single team. Seriously. The only teams that wouldn’t have Clayton Kershaw, Walker Buehler or Trevor Bauer as its ace would be the New York Mets, New York Yankees and the Cleveland Indians.

That means that the Dodgers’ third-best pitcher, whoever it ends up being, is going to be better than 26 of the 30 “aces” in the league. That alone is something to write home about.

Kershaw is not the same Cy Young-winning Kershaw, but if last season (and the MLB Playoffs) are any indication, he still has a lot in the tank. There is this misconception that Kershaw is an old horse who will soon regress heavily, but time is on his side. Kershaw is still only 33 years old and is coming off the smallest workload of his career.

Walker Buehler is a legitimate top-five Cy Young candidate and could win the award. A slow start in 2019 and a blister in 2020 kept him from reaching that potential, but we have all seen how good Buehler is when it matters most.

The Dodgers are 7-2 in Buehler’s last nine postseason starts. Buehler has thrown 49.1 innings with a 1.28 ERA and 68 strikeouts.

Finally, we have the reigning National League Cy Young, who absolutely dominated hitters last season to the tune of a 1.73 ERA, 276 ERA+ and 0.795 WHIP.

While it probably won’t happen because someone else in the NL will step up, the Dodgers have a rotation where it is legitimately possible for the team to finish first, second and third in Cy Young voting.

And it doesn’t stop there.