Clayton Kershaw LOS ANGELES, CA – MAY 23: Clayton Kershaw #22 of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitches during the ninth inning of his 1-0 complete game shutout of the Cincinnati Reds at Dodger Stadium on May 23, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)

On Monday night, Clayton Kershaw laid waste to a bad Cincinnati Reds team. The Los Angeles Dodgers ace threw a complete game shutout, allowing two hits, walking one, and striking out seven while throwing just 102 pitches. It was the 10th time in 10 starts Kershaw had completed at least seven innings. His strikeout total of seven was actually his third-lowest mark of the year. His fourth-inning walk of Joey Votto was just the second walk Kershaw has allowed in his last six outings.

On the season, Kershaw is 7-1 with a 1.48 ERA, 95 strikeouts, and just five walks in 79 innings.

This one start didn’t do much to change the perception of Kershaw’s season and his career. This is his ninth MLB season, and he’s been marvelous in pretty much all of them aside from his 2008 rookie year…when he was just a 20-year-old. Considering Kershaw is only 28, the prospect of him already being a strong contender for the Baseball Hall of Fame may seem ludicrous, but when you crunch the numbers, he’s more of a likely candidate right now than you may realize.

Here’s the nitty gritty on Kershaw through Monday’s start. He has a career record of 121-57 (not that pitcher wins and losses matter all that much to me), a 2.39 ERA, 1,841 strikeouts, 471 walks, 1,690 innings pitched, and of course, three NL Cy Young Awards. Kershaw has also (already) amassed 50.9 career wins above replacement via Fangraphs, and 50.5 via Baseball-Reference.

Let’s put some of those numbers in perspective a bit, shall we? Kershaw is one of nine pitchers to win the Cy Young Award at least three times. Seven of those nine are in the Hall of Fame. One of the two that isn’t is Kershaw, while the other is Roger Clemens (whose candidacy has been tarnished by PED allegations).

Clayton Kershaw
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – MAY 01: Clayton Kershaw #22 of the Los Angeles Dodgers throws a pitch in the second inning against the San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium on May 1, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)

But Kershaw’s candidacy goes deeper than just Cy Young Awards. His 50.5 Baseball-Reference WAR is third among all active players, behind just CC Sabathia (who has seven years on Kershaw) and Felix Hernandez (who has three more seasons than Kershaw, and could get surpassed by him this year). He’s 16th among active players in wins, but first in win-loss percentage.

That aforementioned 2.39 ERA is far and away the lowest mark of any active pitcher with at least 1,000 innings pitched. Madison Bumgarner is the only other pitcher under 3.00, and he’s at 2.99. I didn’t mention WHIP above, but Kershaw is also the active leader there with a 1.015 career mark.

He’s 10th among active players in strikeouts (though he’s the only player still in his 20s in the top 30), and second in strikeout rate. His strikeout to walk ratio of 3.91 is third among active players, behind Bumgarner and Jordan Zimmermann.

OK, fine. Kershaw is one of the best active pitchers in the game. But that doesn’t make him a Hall of Famer! And you’re correct — it doesn’t. And when comparing Kershaw’s stats to baseball’s legends, he falls short — when it comes to counting stats, that is. He’s 97th all-time in bWAR, 104th all-time in strikeouts, 606th all-time in innings pitched, and tied for 423rd all-time in wins.

When talking about rate stats, Kershaw really shines, however. He’s fifth all-time in strikeout rate (behind Randy Johnson, Kerry Wood, Pedro Martinez, and Max Scherzer). His winning percentage is ninth all-time, as is his strikeout to walk ratio. His ERA is 27th all-time, which is pretty damn impressive considering that nearly everyone ahead of him played at least 100 years ago. By contrast, his 157 ERA+ (which is ERA adjusted to the era in which a pitcher pitched and “100” is considered league average) is the second-best mark ever, behind only Mariano Rivera.

Clayton Kershaw
LOS ANGELES, CA – MAY 11: Clayton Kershaw #22 of the Los Angeles Dodgers watches from the dugout before the game againts the New York Mets at Dodger Stadium on May 11, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)

Finally, we’ll dig back into WAR a little bit to close. Baseball-Reference has a metric called “WAR7,” which is the WAR total of a player’s best seven seasons. Since Kershaw is only in his ninth season, there hasn’t been much time for the poor (relatively speaking) seasons to be filtered out. Hell, one of the two seasons not included for Kershaw is this 2016 season that has been so fantastic so far, just because we’re only a third of the way through it. Anyway, Kershaw’s WAR7 of 47.4 is 53rd all-time. That’s impressive, even more so when you consider that only 12 of the players with a WAR7 higher than that are not in the Hall of Fame (and most of those are pitchers from the deadball era).

So… is Clayton Kershaw is a Hall of Famer? If he suffered a crippling, career-ending injury tomorrow, would he be a Hall of Famer? If his skills immediately fell off a cliff and he turned into a league-average pitcher next week, would he be a Hall of Famer? I think the answer to all of those questions is “yes.” The only thing that has really eluded him is postseason success. He has a 4.59 ERA in 64 2/3 career playoff innings. But everything else, Kershaw has in spades. Regular season dominance? Check. Impressive rate statistics compared to the game’s all-time greats? Check. Individual hardware? Check.

Let’s hope we don’t have to have this conversation, however. If Kershaw stays healthy and effective for the next couple of seasons, he’ll be a slam dunk, no doubt Hall of Famer, just like Pedro Martinez was.

And by the way — since World War II, Kershaw is second in ERA among all starting pitchers through age 28 (behind just Tom Seaver), and is fifth in strikeouts. Pitchers this young aren’t supposed to be this good. Yet, here we are.

About Joe Lucia

I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.