Clayton Kershaw

Kershaw still carries great respect within baseball as he reaches the end of a Hall of Fame career, but his inability to avoid injury has made the three-time Cy Young Award winner a major gamble in fantasy. Last season, he didn't pitch for the Dodgers until late July after undergoing offseason shoulder surgery, then made just seven starts before being done for the campaign due to bone spurs in his left big toe. Over his seven appearances, the southpaw showed flashes of his former brilliance -- in a three-start stretch to begin August, for example, he allowed just two runs over 16.1 innings with a 13:3 K:BB -- but he also had some ugly outings and logged an overall mediocre 4.50 ERA and 1.50 WHIP. It's worth remembering that Kershaw was an All-Star the two years prior and registered a 2.37 ERA and 9.6 K/9 over 258 innings during those campaigns, so his 2024 sample size may be too small to indicate that he's emptied out the tank. Still, Kershaw is slated to undergo surgery to both his toe and left knee in the offseason, and though he's indicated a plan to return to Los Angeles in 2025, he's very unlikely to be ready to pitch by the start of the campaign and could have his workload heavily managed upon his return.