Clayton Kershaw Agrees to Contract With Dodgers, Joins LA at Spring Training

Gabe Smallson | Feb 11, 2025

Nov 1, 2024; Los Angeles, CA, USA; starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw (22) lifts the World Series Championship Trophy during the team celebration at Dodger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

Clayton Kershaw is back with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Despite a long offseason of waiting, there was never a doubt that the three-time Cy Young award winner would spend the 2025 season with the Dodgers.

According to ESPN's Alden Gonzalez, the MVP is currently at spring training with the team and even playing some catch. The terms of his next contract have been agreed upon, but the deal is pending a physical.

Clayton Kershaw is at the Dodgers facility playing catch. He and the Dodgers have agreed to terms on a new contract, per source, though he still has to finish going through his physical.

— Alden González (@Alden_Gonzalez) February 11, 2025

From every offseason move, every trade, and every rumor since October, Dodgers faithful only wanted to see one name back in Dodger Blue as L.A. looks to be the first team to win back-to-back titles in a quarter-century. That man is now back with the team.

There has been no shortage of historic players lucky enough to don a Dodgers cap, but a player who has unequivocally earned a right to be remembered by fans forever is Kershaw. 

The legend of the southpaw from Dallas, TX started back in the first round of the 2006 MLB where L.A. selected a teenager with the seventh overall pick.

His debut came in 2008 and by 2010, fans of the baseball world knew that his pitcher was something special.

The 2011 season is when things skyrocketed for Kershaw, as he went 21-5, had a 2.28 ERA, threw 248 strikeouts to only 54 walks, and earned not just his first All-Star nod, but his first Cy Young award.

Perhaps the greatest season of the Los Angeles legend was 2014.

In what would turn into his third Cy Young award-winning year, Kershaw went 21-3 with an absurd 1.77 ERA. He added 239 strikeouts to a puzzlingly-low 31 walks across 198.1 innings pitched. 

Kershaw also did something only 25 pitchers have ever done in the game of baseball that season and took home MVP honors, further solidifying his legacy among the game’s most prestigious pitchers.

The story of Clayton Kershaw is not complete without his share of shortcomings which came in the form of postseason demons throughout his baseball life. 

In 2020, all that changed.

After helping hoist the city’s first championship trophy since 1988 in one of the most improbable baseball seasons to date, Kershaw was immortalized forever as he was now a champion. 

Although injuries kept him off the 2024 postseason roster, his brief regular-season play, in addition to his veteran leadership, made him a champion once more.

With all the talent that the Dodgers brought onto their roster this offseason, no other name means more than Clayton Kershaw.