The Los Angeles Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw have agreed on a seven-year, $215 million deal, sources with knowledge of the situation said.
Kershaw has an out clause after five years.
It is the richest deal for a pitcher in Major League Baseball history, eclipsing the seven-year, $180 million contract Detroit gave Justin Verlander last winter, and his average annual salary of $30.7 million is the highest ever for any baseball player.
The 25-year-old Kershaw has won two of the last three National League Cy Young Awards, as well as a Roberto Clemente award for his charitable work.
One of the things I’ve noticed is most eye-opening to casual sports fans is the size of athletes’ contracts, especially when presented in a more understandable context than “$D over Y years.” In continuing service to this site’s prime audience, the casual sports fan, here are two graphics that place Kershaw’s record-setting contract in context:
Now imagine being the person writing the checks for Kershaw and his teammates.
ALDLAND 
And if you just think Kershaw’s getting too much money, whatever the context, here’s a credible argument that the Dodgers actually are getting a bargain: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-absurd-price-that-clayton-kershaw-is-actually-worth/.
I’m imagining two things. The first is a lot of pressure. If I mess up the number of zeros one way or another the results would be massive. The other is that it is a lot of numbers to write on one check. Spelling it out? That’s got to take up a lot of space. Maybe they’ll just give him those massive checks and make him take those to the bank (subsequently I am now thinking about Happy Gilmore).