Double Clayton Kershaw surgeries should have Dodgers wary about 2025 return

Clayton Kershaw eliminated any doubt about his future with the Dodgers at the team's World Series celebration at Dodger Stadium, when he closed out his emotional remarks to the fans in attendance with a hollered, "Dodger for life!"

Kershaw declined his player option for 2025, but is likely to go into renegotiations with the Dodgers to restructure a deal. Unlike last year, when there were some rumblings that he might be considering a final year (or two) of his career with his hometown Texas Rangers, he seems to be set on retiring with the team that drafted him.

He wasn't available through the Dodgers' postseason run this year, sidelined with a recurring bone spur in his toe, and pitched a career-low amount of innings in a single season with 30, after starting the year late while recovering from a shoulder surgery.

Kershaw has seemed indomitable through so much of his career, but he'll be 37 by the time the 2025 season officially kicks off, and the injuries sort of had to catch up to him eventually.

As it turns out, he'll be coming off of two more surgeries next year as well. On Friday, he told reporters that he'd be undergoing two separate operations on his toe to address the bone spur and a ruptured plantar plate, as well as a knee procedure to repair his meniscus on Wednesday.

Clayton Kershaw's toe and knee surgeries could complicate his Dodgers return

Kershaw reiterated that he was determined to be back with the team next season, but he wasn't able to provide a timeline to return.

There's no way the Dodgers would ever demote Clayton Kershaw to the bullpen, but carrying him in the rotation could lead to some roster complications down the line. If Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, and Tony Gonsolin are healthy at the start of next year, and if the Dodgers re-sign Walker Buehler and/or Jack Flaherty on top of having Kershaw waiting in the wings, that's an incredibly crowded rotation with a lot of guys who are being paid too much to be turned into long relievers. Not to mention the Dodgers might want to make way for some of the rookies — River Ryan and Emmet Sheehan, if they're eventually healthy.

It's hard to see how the Dodgers are going to get around this, unless they trade Gonsolin and don't re-sign one of Buehler or Flaherty. Even then, it's still crowded. Everyone wants to see Kershaw contribute to a World Series win and shake the postseason reputation he's been saddled with, but his presence on the roster definitely won't make things easy on the Dodgers.