Head to head · Career pitching

Clayton Kershaw vs John Lackey

In 2017 Clayton Kershaw has been worth 4.2 more wins. Both lines are computed from play-by-play on the same constants, so they are measured the same way rather than quoted from two sources.

Two of the 25 most valuable pitching careers on this site, 2005–2026, by dbWAR.

Clayton Kershaw LAD

John Lackey CHC

Career

Totalled over the seasons published here, which is not the same as a whole career: a player who debuted before 2005 begins at 2005, not at his real first game.

Career pitching totals. ERA, WHIP and the per-nine rates are recomputed from the components rather than averaged; FIP needs each season’s own constant and is left to the season table.
Statistic	Clayton Kershaw	John Lackey
G	455	364
GS	451	363
IP	2,855.1	2,329.2
W	223	155
L	96	114
SV	0	0
SO	3,052	1,930
BB	713	656
ERA	2.53	3.81
WHIP	1.02	1.27
K/9	9.6	7.5
BB/9	2.2	2.5
HR/9	0.7	1.0
WAR	74.4	35.1

2017 season

2017 pitching. The stronger figure in each row is highlighted — for ERA, FIP, WHIP and walks that is the lower one.
Statistic	Clayton Kershaw	John Lackey
G	27	31
GS	27	30
IP	175.0	170.2
W	18	12
SO	202	149
ERA	2.31	4.59
FIP	3.07	5.30
WHIP	0.95	1.28
K/9	10.4	7.9
BB/9	1.5	2.8
FIP−	70	122
WAR	4.6	0.4

Postseason

Box-score figures only: October is kept out of the season constants, so there is no wOBA, FIP or dbWAR for it.

Every published postseason, pitching, summed with the rates recomputed from the counts.
Statistic	Clayton Kershaw	John Lackey
G	41	24
GS	32	20
IP	196.2	121.2
W	13	6
SV	1	0
SO	213	97
BB	54	41
ERA	4.62	3.62
WHIP	1.14	1.27
K/9	9.7	7.2
BB/9	2.5	3.0

Clayton Kershaw’s full profile →John Lackey’s full profile →

More head to heads

The same seasons, measured against somebody else.

Clayton Kershaw vs

John Lackey vs

How these are computed

FIP uses the constant solved from this season’s own runs, and FIP− is park-adjusted against the same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page. To put these two beside a third, the comparison page takes up to four.