Clayton Kershaw is ready for another run with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In a long-expected move, Kershaw agreed to return to the Dodgers for an 18th season, according to ESPN.
The contract is pending a physical for Kershaw, who missed the final month of the 2024 regular season and all of the Dodgers’ World Series run with a ruptured plantar plate and arthritis in his left foot.
Kershaw, 36, reported to the Dodgers’ Camelback Ranch spring training facility in Phoenix on Tuesday.
A three-time Cy Young Award winner, Kershaw went 2-2 with a 4.50 ERA in 30.0 innings last season. He did not make his season debut until July 25 after undergoing shoulder surgery the previous offseason.
The left-handed Kershaw joins a loaded Dodgers rotation that added two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell and 23-year-old Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki this offseason. Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow are also set to return.
Dodgers expect Shohei Ohtani to resume pitching in MLB games in May. The right-handed Ohtani underwent surgery on his throwing elbow in 2023, then underwent surgery on his left shoulder in November for an injury he suffered during the World Series against the Yankees.
The two-way Ohtani did not pitch last season but won the National League MVP Award after hitting 54 home runs and stealing 59 bases for the first 50-50 season in MLB history.
Kershaw is 212-94 with a 2.50 ERA in his career, all of which he’s spent with the Dodgers. He is 32 strikeouts away from 3,000, which would make him the 20th pitcher, and the fourth left-hander, to reach the milestone.
Once he officially signs, Kershaw will again be one of four former MVPs on the Dodgers, joining Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. Kershaw won NL MVP in 2014.
Kershaw’s signing will elevate an unprecedented Dodgers payroll that Cot’s Contracts currently projects to be $389.1 million, including the 40-man competitive balance tax.