Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES — As new Dodger Max Scherzer takes to the mound on Wednesday night, there will be only one pitcher in the stadium that can be said to be his equal, and that pitcher will be cheering on his teammate from the Dodger dugout, Clayton Kershaw. Now, I know Walker Buehler might lay claim to that mantle before too long, but for now, there are only two sure-thing Hall-of-Famers in the Dodgers’ rotation. However, if we look at the career trajectory of both pitchers, we see that there is a lot of similarity and overlap to the mark they’ve made in the game.
2006 draftees waste no time getting to the bigs
The most obvious similarity is the length of the two men’s careers. Both started in exactly the same year, 2006. Kershaw was a highly regarded draft pick right out of high school, and Scherzer was a hot-shot pitcher coming out of the highly regarded University of Missouri baseball program. But both were first round draft picks by their respective teams in the 2006 draft. Kershaw, as we all know, was picked by the Dodgers at number 7, and the Arizona Diamondbacks chose Scherzer at number 11. So both men had “can’t miss” written all over them.
Of course, with a college career behind him, Scherzer was a much more polished product when he made his first start of his career on May 5 of 2008. Kershaw was a little more raw in his talent, but he made it to the big leagues just a couple of weeks later, starting his first game in a Dodger uniform on May 25 of the same year.
Kershaw’s impressive run
However, it didn’t take long for these two intense competitors to establish themselves as among the game’s best young pitchers. By 2009, Kershaw’s ERA had dipped to 2.79 for the season, the start of a remarkable run. For the next ten straight years, Kersh’s ERA was under 3.00 and in three of those years, it was under 2.00, perhaps the most dominant regular season run of any pitcher of his generation. Along the way, the lefty won three different Cy Young awards, and finished top five in the Cy Young vote four other times. For most of the last decade, Kershaw was practically unhittable. His best year was probably the year of his second Cy Young (and only MVP), 2014, when he went 21-3 with 1.77 ERA.
Scherzer winding path to success
Perhaps unaware of what a talent they had on their hands, the Diamondbacks traded away Scherzer after only two seasons in a three-team deal with the Tigers and Yankees. Max ended up on the Tigers and was part of their resurgence in the early-2010s. The Tigers, with such talent as Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera, made it all the way to the 2012 World Series, losing to the hated Giants that year. The following season was Scherzer’s best in a Tigers’ uniform; he went 21-3 and posted a 2.90 ERA and won his first Cy Young Award.
Back-to-back Cy Youngs
Of course, once Scherzer hit the National League as a free agent after the 2014 season, he just kept getting better and better. Like Kershaw before him, Scherzer won back-to-back Cy Youngs, his coming in 2016 and 2017. During that time he won 36 games while losing only 13, and posted nasty WHIP numbers below 0.75 in both seasons. And, like Kershaw, he finally made it to the mountaintop in 2019, being a big part of the Nationals’ championship run that year. (Although I’d imagine 2019 is a topic Clayton Kershaw would just as soon avoid)
Career Totals Remarkable Similar
Thanks to Baseball Reference’s handy-dandy comparison tool, you can see all the head-to-head career stats right next to each other. And, as you see above, there is not a lot to separate these two aces. The win totals are almost identical. The number of innings pitched is practically the same. However, Kershaw does have better ERA numbers over the course of his career, and more complete games and shut-outs. Scherzer has more strikeouts, and continues to be a strikeout-hunting pitcher, where Clayton tends to go more for soft contact and quick outs these days.
When push comes to shove, you’d have to give the edge to Kershaw in career numbers, but it seems like Scherzer still got a lot left in the tank, so this race is not yet run. We shall see how they both end up at the close of their careers. Whatever the final comparison will be, you can be sure that sooner or later, they will both be standing on a platform in Cooperstown.
