Meet the Dodgers' Kershaw Era All-Star squad

By Andrew Simon | December 14, 2025

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Much will look and feel the same for the Dodgers in 2026. They will begin the season as the defending World Series champions, and have every reason to think they can win another. The spotlight will be bright, Dodger Stadium will be packed, and the roster will be filled with high-profile, highly paid stars.

But there will be one very notable absence. For the first time since 2007, Clayton Kershaw will not pitch for the Dodgers next season. The left-hander retired after making one last run in 2025, which led to him reaching 3,000 career strikeouts and capturing his third World Series ring before riding off into the sunset.

How long ago was 2007, in Dodgers terms? That year’s team was managed by Grady Little and finished fourth in the NL West, eight games behind the Diamondbacks and Rockies. Brad Penny and Derek Lowe led the starting rotation, Takashi Saito was a lockdown closer, and the lineup featured the likes of Juan Pierre, Rafael Furcal, Luis Gonzalez, Nomar Garciaparra and newly minted Hall of Famer Jeff Kent. A 44-year-old David Wells pitched the final seven games of his 21-year career.

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A lot has happened since then, to say the least, both across baseball and with the franchise, which has seen an enviable array of talent come through during this time. We’ll refer to that here as the Kershaw Era. And for the sake of appreciating all of that talent, we’ve gone through the exercise below of building the “Kershaw Era Dodgers All-Stars.” This is a full 26-man roster, based on the best seasons produced by players, for the Dodgers, during Kershaw’s career (2008-25).

If you think the current Dodgers roster is stacked, get a load of this team. (WAR figures below via Baseball-Reference.)

STARTING LINEUP

  1. DH - Shohei Ohtani (2024): 1.036 OPS, 54 HR, 59 SB, 9.2 WAR
  2. 2B - Mookie Betts (2023): .987 OPS, 39 HR, 126 R, 8.6 WAR
  3. RF - Cody Bellinger (2019): 1.035 OPS, 47 HR, 115 RBIs, 8.7 WAR
  4. CF - Matt Kemp (2011): .986 OPS, 39 HR, 40 SB, 8.0 WAR
  5. 1B - Freddie Freeman (2023): .976 OPS, 211 H, 59 2B, 6.8 WAR
  6. 3B - Justin Turner (2017): .945 OPS, .322 BA, .415 OBP, 5.8 WAR
  7. SS - Corey Seager (2016): .877 OPS, 26 HR, .512 SLG, 5.3 WAR
  8. LF - Teoscar Hernandez (2024): .840 OPS, 33 HR, 99 RBIs, 4.3 WAR
  9. C - Will Smith (2025): .901 OPS, .404 OBP, .497 SLG, 4.5 WAR

The sight of this would be enough to make any pitcher -- perhaps even Kershaw himself -- break out in a cold sweat. It features two NL MVP Award winners in Ohtani (who posted the first 50-50 season in MLB history) and Bellinger. Kemp was a deserving winner who finished a close second to Ryan Braun, and Betts and Freeman finished second and third, respectively, to Ronald Acuña Jr. in 2023.

Seager, meanwhile, took NL Rookie of the Year honors as a 22-year-old standout in 2016. Turner, a cornerstone of the Kershaw Era, had perhaps his best season in 2017, three years after the team famously plucked him off the scrap heap and saw him blossom into a key contributor.

You know a lineup has some serious teeth when a 33-homer slugger and a .404-OBP table setter (plus World Series hero) are batting in the bottom two spots.

BENCH

These are the players who couldn’t crack the starting lineup, though they each had an argument for doing so.

Martin was behind the plate for Kershaw’s MLB debut on May 25, 2008, on his way to a second straight All-Star season at age 25. Muncy’s 209 homers are the most for the Dodgers in the Kershaw Era, and 2019 was one of four times he hit either 35 or 36. Turner only spent one full season in L.A. between a 2021 Trade Deadline acquisition and a free-agent deal with Philadelphia, but he made it count.

While he couldn’t sustain his peak for long, Puig was a jaw-dropping, dynamic sensation after debuting in early June 2013, batting .436/.467/.713 that month. Taylor, like Turner and Muncy, is another face of this golden era -- a player acquired for little who became a rock-solid contributor for many years (in his case with tremendous defensive versatility).

ROTATION

  1. LHP - Clayton Kershaw (2014): 1.77 ERA, 239 K’s, 7.7 WAR
  2. RHP - Zack Greinke (2015): 1.66 ERA, 200 K’s, 8.9 WAR
  3. RHP - Walker Buehler (2021): 2.47 ERA, 212 K’s, 7.1 WAR
  4. LHP - Hyun Jin Ryu (2019): 2.32 ERA, 6.8 K/BB, 5.1 WAR
  5. RHP - Yoshinobu Yamamoto (2025): 2.49 ERA, 201 K’s, 4.9 WAR

Obviously, Kershaw has to front the rotation of the Kershaw Era Dodgers All-Stars. The only question was which Kershaw season should it be? Several have strong cases as his best, including 2013 and ‘15, but in the end, his MVP-winning campaign has to get the nod.

Kershaw has briefly shared a rotation with the likes of Greg Maddux (part of 2008) and Max Scherzer (part of 2021), but neither makes the cut here. Greinke, who could one day have a plaque alongside Kershaw’s in Cooperstown, authored a 45 2/3-inning scoreless streak in 2015. Greinke (second), Ryu (second), Yamamoto (third) and Buehler (fourth) all received Cy Young Award consideration, with Yamamoto beating out a crowded field of challengers for the final rotation spot by virtue of his legendary postseason performance this year.

BULLPEN

Kershaw knows better than most that the bullpen was a sore spot for the Dodgers at many -- but certainly not all -- points during his tenure. Still, there were no shortage of dominant individual seasons over that time, including several by Jansen, whose 350 saves for Los Angeles are more than twice what any other pitcher in franchise history has produced.

Broxton had a strong run in the Dodgers ‘pen in the pre-Jansen days and he adds a second closer to the mix. The rest of this group includes two extremely nasty left-handers in Vesia and Kuo (who also once launched a memorable homer and bat flip). They’re joined by three right-handers from recent Dodgers teams, each of whom were at their best in different seasons.

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