MLB: Looking Ahead to Career Milestones of 2017

Clayton Kershaw – 2,000 strikeouts

Don’t let last season’s back injury or several years of relatively disappointing postseason appearances lead you to believe that Clayton Kershaw is anything short of amazing. His career adjusted ERA+ of 159 is the best among starting pitchers in MLB history, comfortably ahead of Pedro Martinez and behind only Mariano Rivera among pitchers with 1,000 career innings pitched. Kershaw will turn 29 just before the start of the 2017 season. He will not be the youngest to reach 2,000 career strikeouts. He will not even be the youngest to reach that milestone this decade, with Felix Hernandez crossing the mark at 29 years, 32 days in 2015.

There are eight players who reached 2,000 career strikeouts before turning 30. However, while Kershaw was by no means a late-bloomer, making his MLB debut two months after his 20th birthday, he will be the first person to join that club without recording a strikeout as a teenager. Kershaw will need a near-reprise of his 301-strikeout campaign in 2015 to set the record for most strikeouts by a player in his age-20 through age-29 seasons, as he sits 288 behind Sam McDowell over that timeframe. Even coming off an injury-plagued campaign, that is certainly not outside the realm of possibility.

With good health, Kershaw could conceivably reach 2,200 strikeouts by the end of the 2017 season in fewer than 2,000 career innings pitched. He is a pitcher in the heart of his prime, pitching for a championship contender in a park that favors pitchers. He can opt out of his contract following the 2018 season, and one can only imagine what kind of contract Kershaw might be able to receive at the age of 31. Appreciate his dominance now as he prepares to pitch for a new deal.