Kershaw for MVP!

[Kilroy]

Think he can do it? It'd be nice to have another Dodger win it... Gibson was a while ago now.

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/clayton-kershaw-ejected-not-playing-arguing-oliver-perez-hit-andre-ethier-don-mattingly-090814

[Neddy]

i am not really all that much of a fan of pitchers getting MVPs, but the more i think about it Kershaw does have more than enough merits this year. i think he can do it and well deservingly so.

[Quake Griffin]

Not a fan of it either. but if there ever were a pitcher to get it, he's very deserving.

How odd is it to say that he's "deserving" with only 198.1 IP?
I'm still of the thought that he wasn't injured to start the year and sitting him out one month was to limit his innings because he threw like 256 last year.

and I believe it has just worked wonders....and he's ready to go for the post season.
good call...whether that came from Donnie or upstairs.

[Kilroy]

Without him, I don't think we make the playoffs... I've been saying the Dodgers need an identity, and that it needs to come from one of the stars... I just assumed it would come from someone on Offense...

But Kershaw I think is the face of this team and it's heart and soul... I don't like Pitchers as MVPs either, but he's so much more to this team than just it's best pitcher...

That crucial Triple last night sealed it for me.

[Kilroy]

Not anymore...

[Ranma]

Bill Shaikin, Baseball America (10/21/14)

How he ended up with the Dodgers is a compelling tale. So is the vindication for Logan White, the scouting director who bet on the 6-foot-3 prep lefthander from Texas, the one who has the lowest ERA of any big league starter with 1,000 innings since World War II.

It’s not close: Kershaw leads at 2.48, followed by Whitey Ford at 2.75 and Sandy Koufax at 2.76.

“That is pretty cool,” White said. “I’m so proud of him. I’m proud of the fact that we were the club that selected him.”

Kershaw is the Baseball America Major League Player of the Year—and what a year. He led the majors in ERA for an unprecedented fourth consecutive season, this time at 1.77. He led the majors with 21 wins, despite spotting the rest of the league five weeks because of injury. The Dodgers went 23-4 in his starts.
...

Oh, that. His strikeout-to walk ratio of 7.8 established a Dodgers franchise record, besting the previous high-water mark of 5.4 turned in by Koufax in 1965.

Major League Player Of The Year: Baseball’s Best Pitcher Keeps Looking Ahead

[Ranma]

Jesse Spector, Sporting News (10/23/14)

Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw is the Sporting News MLB Player of the Year for 2014, as selected by a panel of 244 major league players. Kershaw beat Angels superstar Mike Trout by just three votes.

Kershaw follows a rich tradition of Dodgers to win the award since its inception in 1936, with Duke Snider (1955), Don Drysdale and Maury Wills (who tied in 1962), Sandy Koufax (1963 and 1965), Fernando Valenzuela (1981) and Orel Hershiser (1988) previously having taken the honor. Kershaw is only the second pitcher to win since Hershiser, joining Justin Verlander in 2011.

Clayton Kershaw edges Mike Trout for Sporting News Player of the Year

[Ranma]

[Neddy]

Kershaw is gonna be stigmatized as a regular season stud and mediocre playoff pitcher like Greg Maddux was for the first half of his career as long as Don Mattingly continues to **** things up with the pitching changes. Im sure he feels bittersweet for this award.

Kershaw is a nearly perfect pitcher, and little room to grow as he is pretty much a finished product but i think he should work on his conditioning all through out this off season to increase his endurance. it looked to me during the post season games he was flat out out of gas after 6. and work on his mechanics out of stretch not to tip pitches anymore. work on these two things and i think Kershaw will be just fine being the second coming of Kaufax.

and one more thing. learn from Ryu to stand up for what works for you. When Ryu refused to make bullpen pitching in between starts he took a huge criticism including the very public bitching from Donnie boy himself to the media. after proving his method works, Donnie can't stop phrasing Ryu now. Kershaw needs to know his ego might say yes but when he is tired he is hurting the team. no short rest starts unless he is 100% and no going deep into 7th when he is getting rocked. People will have negative things to say if he takes himself out of game or refuse to go in on a short rest, but do what is best for the team and sometime, that is accepting you can't do everything every time.

[Quake Griffin]

Kershaw is gonna be stigmatized as a regular season stud and mediocre playoff pitcher like Greg Maddux was for the first half of his career as long as Don Mattingly continues to **** things up with the pitching changes. Im sure he feels bittersweet for this award.

Kershaw is a nearly perfect pitcher, and little room to grow as he is pretty much a finished product but i think he should work on his conditioning all through out this off season to increase his endurance. it looked to me during the post season games he was flat out out of gas after 6. and work on his mechanics out of stretch not to tip pitches anymore. work on these two things and i think Kershaw will be just fine being the second coming of Kaufax.

and one more thing. learn from Ryu to stand up for what works for you. When Ryu refused to make bullpen pitching in between starts he took a huge criticism including the very public bitching from Donnie boy himself to the media. after proving his method works, Donnie can't stop phrasing Ryu now. Kershaw needs to know his ego might say yes but when he is tired he is hurting the team. no short rest starts unless he is 100% and no going deep into 7th when he is getting rocked. People will have negative things to say if he takes himself out of game or refuse to go in on a short rest, but do what is best for the team and sometime, that is accepting you can't do everything every time.

did not think he was tired in Game 4.

thought he might have been tired in Game 1.
That might have had to do with the temperature being like 95 degrees that day...i thought that, his adrenaline etc. etc. might have had him a little gassed.

Game 4....i thought he was fine....that both those singles had eyes and that matt adams just hit a lucky curveball over the fence.

[Kilroy]

I'm of the mindset that if you put a great player in a position to do something great, it's the player's responsibility to rise to the occasion and do something spectacular... I can't blame Mattingly for 2 bad post season showings.

Maybe it's maturity. But it's on Kershaw to rewrite history in this case and become the post season killer we all expect him to be.

[Neddy]

I'm of the mindset that if you put a great player in a position to do something great, it's the player's responsibility to rise to the occasion and do something spectacular... I can't blame Mattingly for 2 bad post season showings.

Maybe it's maturity. But it's on Kershaw to rewrite history in this case and become the post season killer we all expect him to be.

but take account, that every great player makes his own path of maturity. the great Sandy Koufax took a half a dozen years just to become major league competent.

Kershaw maybe a great pitcher and one of the greatest we can remember in recent times, but he is still young and his playoff record so far has been lousy. if it was Tommy Lasorda, as clumsy as he was, he would have recognized the importance of gaining positive experience in post season, and would have pulled Kershaw in both game 1 and game 4 while he was ahead, knowing how he gave up so many runs and lost his confidence the very last year against the very same cardinal team.

a great managers know when to sacrifice his own reputation for the sake of the growth of a young player, just like how Tommy refused to play Hollinsworth against left handed pitching and had him make the very minimum at bats to quality for the ROY at the very end of the season while potentially giving up total wins, Todd was so overrated it wasn't even funny but Tommy did it for Todd's sake and his growth and confidence sake. Donnie on the other hand, would have sacrificed any chance of Todd's ROY for a couple more Ws on the WIn column. Clay under Tommy would be a sure thing as Tommy's handling or Orel or Fernando proved to be a hall of fame worthy.

[Kilroy]

Cy Young and NL MVP! Still disappointed we didn't go farther in the post season... But this is still pretty cool!

[Neddy]

as long as we avoid the Cards in the playoffs, i don't think any other team has figured out Kershaw's pitch tipping.