Clayton Kershaw: Playoff Choker?

By Sean Wei | March 5, 2020

He’s one of the most dominant pitchers of our generation, many would argue of all time. As an 8-time All Star, 3-time Cy Young Award Winner, and former MVP, Clayton Kershaw has cemented his place in Los Angeles Dodgers and baseball lore forever. But for the past few seasons, a narrative has emerged, one that might tarnish the Dodgers southpaw’s otherwise spotless legacy on the field: Clayton Kershaw can not perform in the playoffs. Somehow, the Dodgers’ long-time ace has developed the reputation of a choker. Recently, fuel was added to thefire in the 2019 postseason, where Kershaw gave up back-to-back home runs to Washington Nationals sluggers Anthony Rendon and Juan Soto to blow a late lead in a win-or-go-home NLDS Game 5. So how has someone who has so consistently dominated his competition in the regular season earned the nickname “Chokeshaw,” and does he deserve all the criticism? Let’s look at the math.

Win-Loss record is a hotly debated statistic in baseball because it heavily relies on the runsupport a pitcher receives, which is mostly out of the pitcher’s control. However, being an elite pitcher on a strong playoff team almost guarantees a solid W-L Record. Regular season Clayton Kershaw fits this mold, producing a 0.695 career W-L%. On the other hand, Kershaw holds a much lower 0.450 career postseason W-L%. Interestingly, Kershaw’s numbers get worse as he gets deeper into the playoffs. His W-L% drops from 0.556 in the Divisional Series to 0.375 in the Championship Series and 0.333 in the World Series.

Earned Run Average is typically looked at as a more fair assessment of a pitcher’s ability,although some would argue that it is dependent on the defensive support a pitcher receives. Unfortunately, Kershaw’s ERA is another stat that sees a significant drop, as his career 2.44 regular season ERA skyrockets to 4.43 in the postseason. Once again, we see a correlation between higher pressure situations and worse performance, as his ERA rose from 3.99 in the NLDS to 4.61 in the NLCS and 5.40 in the World Series. Additionally, Kershaw sports a 5.77 ERA in games where his team faces elimination, good for second highest in all of MLB history.

Take a look at how some of Kershaw’s other career numbers have changed as he moved deeper into the postseason.

As one can see, statistics such as ERA, WHIP, and Hits per 9 Innings (H9), which pitchers try to minimize, remain consistently higher throughout the postseason than they do in the regular season, always sporting a ratio above 1. Meanwhile, Kershaw demonstrates that throughout the playoffs, he’s unable to stretch into the same workload he held during the regular season in terms of innings pitched per game. However, most of these trends are not sustained, such as how Kershaw’s career WHIP in the World Series is better than in the NLCS. Some of these differences between postseason and regular season are also not drastic enough to be considered significant drop offs in production.

Meanwhile, the statistical differences become more distinct as one looks at Kershaw’s numbers in the past two seasons, as the “choking” narrative really started to take off following the 2017 World Series, when Kershaw posted respectable numbers (4.02 ERA, 0.894 Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched), but the Dodgers ultimately lost to the Astros in Game 7 (although recent evidence has been discovered that may indicate that the Astros cheated). During the 2018 regular season, Kershaw posted a 2.73 ERA, which rose to 4.20 during the postseason. Additionally, Kershaw demonstrated a loss of command, as his 2018 strikeout to walk ratio of 5.35 dipped to 4.33 in the playoffs. However, throughout the playoffs, Kershaw continued to maintain an above average WHIP and even maintained a very low opponent batting average of 0.229, which was about twenty points better than the league average.

The 2019 season is where the difference between regular season Kershaw and playoff Kershaw is the most noticeable. Kershaw’s regular season ERA of 3.03 more than doubled in the postseason to 7.11. His opponents, who hit for a 0.222 batting average (BA), 0.269 on-base percentage (OBP), and 0.394 slugging percentage (SLG) during the regular season, soon found themselves posting a collective 0.308/0.379/0.654 slash line (BA/OBP/SLG). For reference, the 2019 league average slash line was 0.252/0.323/0.435. Take a look at how Kershaw’s regular season and postseason stats over the past two seasons have compared to the league average.

In 2018, aside from ERA, Kershaw’s numbers did not take as drastic of a jump from the regular season to the playoffs as most believed, and Kershaw even posted slightly above-average numbers. Looking at the math, aside from his 2019 postseason, there is little evidence to suggest that Kershaw’s playoff struggles have been as crippling as baseball fans have claimed. So why has the southpaw been so heavily berated for his performance? While Kershaw has posted serviceable numbers in postseasons past, “just okay” is often not going to cut it on baseball’s largest stage, especially for the most dominant pitcher of this generation. Perhaps recency bias plays into it, as Kershaw’s biggest struggles have come in his last two playoff series, the 2018 World Series and 2019 NLDS. Maybe Kershaw is just not clutch situationally, as he most recently gave up two home runs late in an elimination game. However, there is one thing that is certain: when you’re one of the greatest pitchers to ever step on the mound, the expectations you set for yourself will always be on another level, and any failure to meet those lofty expectations will only result in disappointment.

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