With the Dodgers throwing around money like never before presumably one of their next moves will be trying to lock up reigning Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw to a long-term contract extension.
This winter Kershaw and the Dodgers avoided arbitration with a two-year, $19 million deal that pays him $7.5 million this season and $11.5 million in 2013. And once that deal is over he’ll still be under team control for 2014 via arbitration, at which point Kershaw could hit the open market as a 27-year-old free agent.
All of which means there’s no huge rush for the Dodgers to get something done, but once their wallet is open it might not be such a bad idea and for his part Kershaw told Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times that he’d be open to working out an extension:
It’s a different situation because Kershaw still has two-plus seasons of team control remaining, but in terms of an extension buying out his potential free agent years Cole Hamels’ recent six-year, $144 million extension with the Phillies would seemingly represent the starting point for any talks.
