Kershaw Warren Spahn plazaBy Jon Weisman

More notes from the world of the Dodgers and baseball…

  • Clayton Kershaw received his Warren Spahn Award in a ceremony at Oklahoma City on Wednesday.
  • Kershaw is the main individual example in a broad post (with lots of math) by Scott Lindholm at Beyond the Box Score, discussing how permutations of pitcher game scores might be used to replace the win.
  • The Dodgers have the fourth-best defense in the Majors heading into 2015, according to Buster Olney of ESPN.com.
  • Carl Erskine talked to Clarke Payne of the Muncie Free Press about how an opposing high school coach played a key role in encouraging him to pursue his dreams of playing baseball.
  • Just gonna tease you with the headline here: “Terry Forster’s Musical Feast,” by Dan Epstein at Just a Bit Outside.

  • Miles Wray of Fangraphs looks at the “compressed” MLB standings and admires the Dodgers’ efforts to pull away from the pack. Los Angeles is No. 1 in Fangraphs’ 2015 forecast.
  • FIP, the fielding-independent pitching stat, which you’ll see more and more of in baseball coverage here and elsewhere, is explained from a minor-league perspective by Sam Dykstra of MiLB.com.
  • Pitch clocks might be coming to the minors soon, but they’re a bad idea, writes Cliff Corcoran of SI.com.
  • Bud Selig presided over his final MLB owners’ meeting as commissioner. Paul Hagen of MLB.com reports.