Living in the Midwest, I have always seen a lot of coverage of baseball teams east of the Rocky Mountains, which isn’t necessarily fair to the elite players and teams on the west coast.
This summer I lived in Los Angeles and got to cover the Dodgers and the Angels, some of the best talent in the league.
I believe Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher in the game, hands down. Despite missing a month of the season with a back injury, the 26-year-old currently leads Major League Baseball with 21 wins, a 1.77 ERA and six complete games.*
The lefty also leads the National League in strikeouts by four, but the two players tied for second, Stephen Strasburg and Johnny Cueto, each have one start remaining. Over his seven-year career, Kershaw has been a four-time All-Star and has won two Cy Young Awards.
Now Kershaw has the chance to win the second pitching triple crown of his career. The first came in 2011 when he went 21-5 with a 2.28 ERA and struck out 248 hitters. He’s is coming at hitters with a hard fastball, a curveball that drops off the table and a devastating slider. If he can improve his changeup, he will become unhittable.
The media will often advertise Justin Verlander, David Price, Felix Hernandez or Adam Wainwright as top pitchers in the MLB. They are all great pitchers, but none have been more consistent than Kershaw.
Verlander and Price have two seasons with a sub-three ERA. Hernandez and Wainwright both have four seasons with a sub-three ERA. Kershaw has six of his seven seasons with an ERA below three and two of those seasons, including this year, have been below two.
Kershaw is also the only pitcher of the group to have two or more seasons of 20 or more wins and has at least two years fewer in experience.
One of the most impressive statistics of the season for Kershaw is his 7.71strikeout-to-walk ratio. Only Phil Hughes has a better ratio at 11.63, but Kershaw has improved over his best ratio, which was 4.59 in 2011. Kershaw has also improved at keeping hitters off base. He leads the MLB in walks and hits per innings pitched with 0.86 runners reaching base per inning, the best mark of his career.
Most pitchers are figured out after several successful seasons and their careers begin to depreciate, but Kershaw has continued to get better every season in his career. Kershaw’s .875 winning percentage this season is tied for the 14th best all-time for a season. Kershaw is the current live-ball ERA leader with a 2.49 ERA.
Kershaw produces video game-esque numbers on the field, but his accolades for off-the-field work is just as outstanding. In 2012, Kershaw won the Roberto Clemente Award for his sportsmanship and community involvement. In 2013, he won the Branch Rickey Award for his exceptional community service.
Kershaw and his wife, Ellen, built an orphanage in Zambia after meeting an 11-year old girl who was HIV-positive. In order to build the orphanage, he began donating money based on how many strikeouts he had in 2011 and 2012.
Kershaw has dominated opposing hitters en route to winning the NL ERA title for the fourth consecutive season. He has been great in terms of giving back to the community, and has won several awards in the past two years. We need to sit back and enjoy watch- ing the greatest pitcher of our time instead of comparing him to others in the league.
