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Kershaw Postseason Statistics Analyzed From 2013 to 2018 – Details

Published

6 years ago

October 18, 2018

Peter Dredd

Dreddsworld : Kershaw Postseason Statistics Analyzed From 2013 to 2018

Kershaw entered the majors as a very talented pitcher who also threw hard. He reached superstardom in his fourth big league season, when at age 23 he combined his terrifying stuff with that craftiness that only the great ones pick up that early, in the process winning his first Cy Young Award.

Two years later, Kershaw reached the absolute height of his powers, hurling a career-high 236 regular-season innings, flashing a Koufaxian 1.83 ERA, and bagging the 2013 Cy Young Award.

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Let’s use Kershaw’s performance in that year’s postseason as our starting point to analyze his fastball velocity over the years. Here’s how that looks for each of his playoff campaigns since ’13:

KERSHAW’S AVERAGE FASTBALL VELOCITY

2013 postseason: 94.1 mph
2014 postseason: 94.1 mph
2015 postseason: 95.0 mph
2016 postseason: 94.2 mph
2017 postseason: 92.5 mph
2018 postseason: 91.0 mph

Kershaw is a smart guy. He knows exactly what’s happened to his fastball over the years, where his once near-elite velocity now looks positively flaccid in today’s era of triple-digit-firing monsters. So he’s made adjustments. Check out how dramatically he’s changed his pitch mix this fall:

KERSHAW’S POSTSEASON PITCH USAGE

2008-2017:

Fastball: 59 percent
Slider: 16 percent
Curve: 15 percent

2018:

Fastball: 43 percent
Slider: 42 percent
Curve: 15 percent

So enjoy the Clayton Kershaw of our imaginations while we still can. For the Dodgers’ sake, that guy would be most welcome around 2:05 p.m. local time on Wednesday afternoon.