Will Clayton Kershaw Receive Qualifying Offer From Dodgers?

Last offseason Clayton Kershaw became a free agent for the first time in his career, and due to recovering from a left elbow/forearm injury, the Los Angeles Dodgers decided against extending him a qualifying offer for the 2022 season.

President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman explained the decision stemmed from wanting to allow Kershaw and his family ample time to decide on their future rather than placing them under a timeline. Players have 10 days to accept or reject the one-year pact.

This offseason, teams face a 2 p.m. PT deadline on Thursday to extend a qualifying offer to eligible free agents. Those who receive it will then have until Sunday, November 20, to make a decision.

According to Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group, Friedman said the Dodgers have not yet decided if a qualifying offer will be extended to Kershaw:

They have not made a decision on the qualifying offer with the same respect to Kershaw’s offseason timetable – “we’ll figure that out,” Friedman said.

The qualifying offer for the 2023 season is valued at $19.65 million. That’s an increase from $18.4 million for this year, which represented a $500,000 decline from 2021.

The qualifying offer value is determined by taking the average of the game’s 125 highest-paid players. The system has been in place since 2012 and seen 110 players be extended a qualifying offer.

Of those, 11 have accepted; including Brett Anderson with the Dodgers for 2016, and Hyun-Jin Ryu for 2019.

Regardless of how Thursday unfolds, the Texas Rangers again are said to have interest in Kershaw.

Dodgers qualifying offer candidates

If not Kershaw, Dodgers free agents likely to be extended the qualifying offer for 2023 are Tyler Anderson and Trea Turner.

Andrew Heaney is another who conceivably may be extended the one-year pact, but he appears to be much more unlikely than Anderson, Kershaw and Turner.