Dodgers need to find a new leader to replace Kershaw’s personality

Dodgers FanFest 2026 is an annual reminder to fans that baseball is just around the corner. Saturday in Chavez Ravine, however, the loudest presence was an absence.

Clayton Kershaw wasn’t there.

For the first time since he was a wide-eyed nineteen-year-old draft pick, the Dodgers gathered without the man who had been their north star for nearly two decades. Kershaw, three-time Cy Young Award winner, former National League MVP, 11-time All-Star and three-time World Series champion, retired at the end of the 2025 season.

In two weeks that reality will become sharper.

When this current Dodgers team reports to Camelback Ranch for spring training, they walk into a clubhouse that has never existed before for them. There will be no locker with number 22 above it. No sprints in the early morning before the start. No more laughter when he sings in the weight room, no more Kershaw Days at Dodger Stadium.

“Obviously we’re going to miss Clayton,” manager Dave Roberts said. “It’s a different ball club without him. When we get to spring training and Camelback and don’t see his locker where it’s been for 18 years, it’ll be different.”

Kershaw spent all 18 seasons with the Dodgers, a rarity in modern sports and a point of pride for an organization that saw him compile a 222-96 record, a Live Ball Era-best 2.54 ERA, 15 shutouts and 3,000 strikeouts. He is second on the franchise wins list, just 11 behind Don Sutton, and is tied with Zack Wheat and Bill Russell for the most seasons ever played in Dodger Blue. A first-ballot Hall of Famer awaits, even if Cooperstown won’t say it out loud just yet.

“It’ll be really weird not seeing him there,” Mookie Betts said. “I also want him to enjoy his retirement. It’s a new chapter in life and something he won’t be used to. I really want him to enjoy it, but I really want him to come and watch the boys too.”

Freddie Freeman smiled and then paused, the memory still fresh in his mind. “I just saw my walk-off home run [in Game 3 of the 2025 World Series] and they showed Kersh running onto the field like a five-year-old looking for candy. Everyone talks about Kershaw, the Hall of Fame pitcher, what he meant to this organization, but the day-to-day in the clubhouse, the joy he brings, singing his heart out shirtless in the weight room – those are the things I will miss even more. It’s strange to see Dodgers legends no longer walking through the clubhouse.”

Will Smith put it more quietly. “I will miss his presence every day,” he said. “He keeps the atmosphere light, but is also intense in everything he does. His legacy will continue in the clubhouse.”

Kershaw was joking once he was on the ‘no plan, plan’ route. That didn’t last long.

Team USA in the World Baseball Classic awaits, as does a new role on NBC’s Sunday Night Baseball. He’ll be there, Betts joked, hopefully not too critical of his former team.

But when spring arrives in Arizona, silence will land first. The Dodgers will move forward. They always do that.

They’ll just do it without Kershaw standing there and reminding everyone what it meant to wear the uniform.

Download the California Post app, follow us on social media and subscribe to our newsletters