To the shock of no one, the Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw have officially agreed to a new three-year deal to stay in Los Angeles. The new contract will run til the 2021 season, and is set at $93MM -- averaging $31MM per season. On top of that, there are incentives drilled-in based on both number of starts and Cy Young voting, per Ken Rosenthal on twitter:
Not too shabby, eh?Kershaw breakdown: $31M in 2019, ‘20 and ‘21, plus $1M each for 24 starts, 26 starts, 28 starts, 30 starts. Also gets $1.5M for Cy Young, $500K for second- or third-place finish.— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 2, 2018
BTW, this new contract also does NOT include another opt-out clause, so we won't have to worry about in the future. Per Rowan Kavner at Dodger Insider:
“Obviously he’s made as much of an impact as you can on an organization in terms of the success we’ve had — not just on the field, but from a culture standpoint in terms of bringing up young pitchers and kind of emulating the work ethic, the drive,” said president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman.In celebration of this news I made a couple of fantasy custom Baseball cards of Clayton using two of my all-time favorite card designs -1952 & 1991 Topps. Check them out above. Both cards use pics originally taken by Jon SooHoo during the recent Game 5 at Dodger Stadium.
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In other news, two Dodger free agent receive qualifying offers today, per Jeff Todd at MLB Trade Rumors. They are Yasmani Grandal and Hyun-Jin Ryu, and they'll have ten days to accept a one-year deal at $17.9MM or continue to free agency.
I suspect Grandal will reject the QO and find a new suitor to play for. Ryu, on the other hand, might be a different story. He could very well find several teams willing to fork over big bucks to sign him to a mid-term deal today, but he just as easily could accept it in hopes that a full season will garner him a better contract after 2019. So, I think the Ryu situation is a crap-shoot.
Personally, I wouldn't mid having Ryu back in Los Angeles next year, but I suspect he won't get the playing time he would want if he stays. The Dodgers remain deep at the position, and I wouldn't be surprised if he isn't afforded the opportunity to make 30 starts.
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