The Los Angeles Dodgers are currently working toward making 25-year-old ace Clayton Kershaw a very rich man, but the left-hander would prefer if we didn’t know anything about it. On Sunday, Ken Rosenthal of FOXSports.com reported that the Dodgers have made progress on a seven-year extension for Kershaw worth roughly $180 million, which would make him the highest-paid pitcher in the league.
Rosenthal also noted that LA and Kershaw have discussed monster deals worth 10 years, $250 million and 12 years, $300 million. Kershaw has no idea how the public got this information.
“I think the reason we’ve been able to continue discussions this long is that it hasn’t been talked about (publicly),” he said Sunday, via Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register. “Now that it’s being talked about, it’s a distraction because I’m being asked about it.”
When asked if he was upset that the talks had gone public, Kershaw simply said “yeah.” He then elaborated and stopped just barely short of blaming the Dodgers.
“I don’t love the fact that I have to talk about it,” he said. “You’ll have to ask them why they talked about it now. We had an agreement we weren’t going to talk about. It didn’t come from our side. That’s all I can say.”
In this the booming era of social media, the leak could have come from anywhere. Considering they are looking to lock Kershaw up before he hits free agency, I don’t see how the Dodgers would benefit from releasing information about their private discussions with him. While I understand that Kershaw would prefer to not have to deal with the distraction of discussing it with the media, players rarely — if ever — have that luxury.
