Kershaw, Clayton

Bill James devoted quite a bit of his early national career talking about how one gets to the Hall of Fame. And what he found that the three best ways to get there were to be a key member of a Yankee's championship team, a friend of (or contemporaneous with) certain members of the Veteran's Committee (under the rules in effect at that time) and most importantly, get to the big leagues EARLY. All those milestone numbers become harder and harder the later you arrive in the game.

Kershaw got to the bigs at age 20. He held his own and then some in 2008 and then was impressive in 2009 (even more impressive if you toss out his 7+ ERA first month). There's a long way to go and many stops along the way, but even if the train he is on doesn't go straight to Cooperstown, he's certainly on the right branch line.

It's reasonably obvious that his walks will be an impediment to him in all kinds of ways (see negatives), and for him to be a quality fantasy starter, he's going to have to start working more deeply into games, which will result in more strikeouts and more decisions per start. But when you are reaching triple digit pitches in the fifth inning, you are never going to get a lot of wins, and even a sparkling K rate won't get you a plus number of strikeouts.

We love Kershaw, but it's just a guess which year, if any, he'll be able to post 200 innings. When he does, he's likely to be amongst the very best fantasy properties. 15-0-3.45-1.30-200 in 180 IP