Dodgers expect spring training without Clayton Kershaw to feel ‘strange’

LOS ANGELES — When the Dodgers report for spring training at Camelback Ranch this week, something will be missing.

For the first time since 2007 – when the team was still training in Vero Beach, Florida, and he was just a teenage pitching prospect in his first spring as a pro – Clayton Kershaw will not be one of those players reporting for major-league spring training. Kershaw announced his retirement after 18 seasons in the major leagues last fall.

“When we get to spring training at Camelback and not seeing his locker where it’s been for 17 years, 18 years, it’s gonna be different,” said Dave Roberts, the Dodgers’ manager for the last 10 years of Kershaw’s career. “The presence, seeing No. 22 out there early, doing sprints, seeing him in the weight room, knowing it’s Kershaw Day (when he pitched), not having that – it’s different.”

First baseman Freddie Freeman joked that his last image of Kershaw on a baseball field will be seeing replays from Freeman’s walk-off home run to win Game 3 of last fall’s World Series and “Kersh running on the field like a 5-year-old looking for candy.” The future Hall of Famer’s day-to-day presence will be missed, Freeman said.

“I’m gonna miss it,” he said at last month’s DodgerFest event. “Everyone talks about first-ballot Hall-of-Fame pitcher, what he meant to this organization. But the day in and day out, what we get to see and have with him and the joy he brings – him singing shirtless in the weight room at the top of his lungs – those are the things that you’ll miss more, for me.

“It’s gonna be hard. It’s like when I first got here after one year and JT (Justin Turner) wasn’t here anymore. It’s weird seeing Dodger legends not walk around the clubhouse anymore. … It’s definitely going to be weird not having No. 22 walking around. But we’ll see him here at the ring ceremony.”

Kershaw will not be disappearing into retirement. He has been added to Team USA’s roster for the World Baseball Classic and will pitch in the international competition for the first time next month. Kershaw has also joined NBC’s broadcast team as the network takes over “Sunday Night Baseball” from ESPN this season.

“It is going to be very strange,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said of not having Kershaw on the team. “He has been the one consistent force in all my time here with the Dodgers. Just being able to pick his brain and talk to him about what he’s seeing with our young arms, debating with him about our team’s strengths and weaknesses. … He’s one of the few guys that I have encountered who is so focused on what he does and is also able to ask or point out really impactful things. He will frame it in a way as asking a naive question and because of our banter and us playfully arguing back and forth – I would argue with him but I would walk away saying, ‘That’s a really good question. He’s right. We should think about this differently.’ He has a very special knack with that.”

Now the longest-tenured player on the Dodgers’ roster, third baseman Max Muncy agreed that Kershaw’s absence is going to feel “a little strange.”

“I’ve actually been thinking about that a lot with us reporting soon. It’s going to be a lot different,” Max Muncy said late last month. “He’s been the leader here for 18, 19 years. I’ve always said he’s the one that sets the example here – not with his words, just with his actions. How he competes every fifth day, how he goes out there and does his work before the game, does his work in the weight room, does his dry work trying to get better on the mound, working on his mechanics. He’s always been about, ‘How do I get better and then how do I make my teammates better?’

“I know he says the culture was set before him. But to me, he’s always been the one who set the culture here with the Dodgers. We’ve all been following in his footsteps. It’s up to us to keep that going. It’s going to be a challenge but we’ll be thinking about him for sure.”

Kershaw’s intensity while also “keeping the mood light” will be missed, according to Dodgers catcher Will Smith.

“But we’ve got a lot of guys that have learned so much from him over the years,” Smith said. “His legacy is going to carry on in our clubhouse.”

Friedman expects “the Kersh Effect” to live on in the Dodgers’ clubhouse.

“I think so many of our guys had the benefit of being around him and watching the way he competed and prepared that I think there will be a long tail – the ‘Kersh Effect’ – in our clubhouse,” Friedman said.