Will Kershaw be the last pitcher to reach 3000 Ks?
Posted by Potomac on July 3, 2025, 9:26:49
From Wall St Journal.
Baseball has changed dramatically since Kershaw debuted for the Dodgers as a fresh-faced 20-year-old in 2008, just two years after Los Angeles drafted him seventh overall out of a Dallas high school. Back then, ace starters were expected to be workhorses, tasked with carrying their teams as far as they possibly could every time they took the ball.
The job is different nowadays. Teams are fiercely protective of their young starters, keeping them on strict innings limits and pitch counts in the hope of preserving their health....
As a result, starters have become merely the opening act before an inevitable parade of mostly anonymous relievers start jogging in from the bullpen.
Case in point: The 17 retired pitchers who have struck out 3,000 batters averaged just shy of 213 innings per season during their tenures, according to Stats Perform.... In Kershaw’s case, he threw 232 2/3 innings in 2015. Nobody in MLB has reached that total in a single season since.
So while strikeouts are more commonplace than ever before, the idea of one pitcher having the longevity to amass 3,000 of them anytime soon is difficult to fathom....
Besides the trifecta of Verlander, Scherzer and Kershaw, only two active pitchers are within 750 strikeouts of 3,000. Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves has 2,528, but he is 36-years-old, has an extensive track record of injuries and is currently sidelined with a fractured rib cage. Gerrit Cole of the New York Yankees, 34, is sitting at 2,251, but he won’t pitch again until 2026 as he recovers from Tommy John surgery.
Sale and Cole are the last holdovers who still have outside chances of matching Kershaw’s feat. After that, the landscape becomes much more dicey....
Kershaw’s teammate, Blake Snell, strikes out 11.2 per nine innings, but he has never thrown more than 180 ⅔ innings in a season during his decade in MLB. Paul Skenes might be the future of pitching, but he has averaged six innings an outing thus far in his time with the Pittsburgh Pirates....
Baseball has changed dramatically since Kershaw debuted for the Dodgers as a fresh-faced 20-year-old in 2008, just two years after Los Angeles drafted him seventh overall out of a Dallas high school. Back then, ace starters were expected to be workhorses, tasked with carrying their teams as far as they possibly could every time they took the ball.
The job is different nowadays. Teams are fiercely protective of their young starters, keeping them on strict innings limits and pitch counts in the hope of preserving their health....
As a result, starters have become merely the opening act before an inevitable parade of mostly anonymous relievers start jogging in from the bullpen.
Case in point: The 17 retired pitchers who have struck out 3,000 batters averaged just shy of 213 innings per season during their tenures, according to Stats Perform.... In Kershaw’s case, he threw 232 2/3 innings in 2015. Nobody in MLB has reached that total in a single season since.
So while strikeouts are more commonplace than ever before, the idea of one pitcher having the longevity to amass 3,000 of them anytime soon is difficult to fathom....
Besides the trifecta of Verlander, Scherzer and Kershaw, only two active pitchers are within 750 strikeouts of 3,000. Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves has 2,528, but he is 36-years-old, has an extensive track record of injuries and is currently sidelined with a fractured rib cage. Gerrit Cole of the New York Yankees, 34, is sitting at 2,251, but he won’t pitch again until 2026 as he recovers from Tommy John surgery.
Sale and Cole are the last holdovers who still have outside chances of matching Kershaw’s feat. After that, the landscape becomes much more dicey....
Kershaw’s teammate, Blake Snell, strikes out 11.2 per nine innings, but he has never thrown more than 180 ⅔ innings in a season during his decade in MLB. Paul Skenes might be the future of pitching, but he has averaged six innings an outing thus far in his time with the Pittsburgh Pirates....
Illiniphil is a mindless robot
Not a chance. *
Posted by AceFrehley on July 3, 2025, 22:06:50, in reply to "Skenes*"
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From Wall St Journal.
Baseball has changed dramatically since Kershaw debuted for the Dodgers as a fresh-faced 20-year-old in 2008, just two years after Los Angeles drafted him seventh overall out of a Dallas high school. Back then, ace starters were expected to be workhorses, tasked with carrying their teams as far as they possibly could every time they took the ball.
The job is different nowadays. Teams are fiercely protective of their young starters, keeping them on strict innings limits and pitch counts in the hope of preserving their health....
As a result, starters have become merely the opening act before an inevitable parade of mostly anonymous relievers start jogging in from the bullpen.
Case in point: The 17 retired pitchers who have struck out 3,000 batters averaged just shy of 213 innings per season during their tenures, according to Stats Perform.... In Kershaw’s case, he threw 232 2/3 innings in 2015. Nobody in MLB has reached that total in a single season since.
So while strikeouts are more commonplace than ever before, the idea of one pitcher having the longevity to amass 3,000 of them anytime soon is difficult to fathom....
Besides the trifecta of Verlander, Scherzer and Kershaw, only two active pitchers are within 750 strikeouts of 3,000. Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves has 2,528, but he is 36-years-old, has an extensive track record of injuries and is currently sidelined with a fractured rib cage. Gerrit Cole of the New York Yankees, 34, is sitting at 2,251, but he won’t pitch again until 2026 as he recovers from Tommy John surgery.
Sale and Cole are the last holdovers who still have outside chances of matching Kershaw’s feat. After that, the landscape becomes much more dicey....
Kershaw’s teammate, Blake Snell, strikes out 11.2 per nine innings, but he has never thrown more than 180 ⅔ innings in a season during his decade in MLB. Paul Skenes might be the future of pitching, but he has averaged six innings an outing thus far in his time with the Pittsburgh Pirates....
Baseball has changed dramatically since Kershaw debuted for the Dodgers as a fresh-faced 20-year-old in 2008, just two years after Los Angeles drafted him seventh overall out of a Dallas high school. Back then, ace starters were expected to be workhorses, tasked with carrying their teams as far as they possibly could every time they took the ball.
The job is different nowadays. Teams are fiercely protective of their young starters, keeping them on strict innings limits and pitch counts in the hope of preserving their health....
As a result, starters have become merely the opening act before an inevitable parade of mostly anonymous relievers start jogging in from the bullpen.
Case in point: The 17 retired pitchers who have struck out 3,000 batters averaged just shy of 213 innings per season during their tenures, according to Stats Perform.... In Kershaw’s case, he threw 232 2/3 innings in 2015. Nobody in MLB has reached that total in a single season since.
So while strikeouts are more commonplace than ever before, the idea of one pitcher having the longevity to amass 3,000 of them anytime soon is difficult to fathom....
Besides the trifecta of Verlander, Scherzer and Kershaw, only two active pitchers are within 750 strikeouts of 3,000. Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves has 2,528, but he is 36-years-old, has an extensive track record of injuries and is currently sidelined with a fractured rib cage. Gerrit Cole of the New York Yankees, 34, is sitting at 2,251, but he won’t pitch again until 2026 as he recovers from Tommy John surgery.
Sale and Cole are the last holdovers who still have outside chances of matching Kershaw’s feat. After that, the landscape becomes much more dicey....
Kershaw’s teammate, Blake Snell, strikes out 11.2 per nine innings, but he has never thrown more than 180 ⅔ innings in a season during his decade in MLB. Paul Skenes might be the future of pitching, but he has averaged six innings an outing thus far in his time with the Pittsburgh Pirates....
on July 3, 2025, 9:26:49
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