Clayton Kershaw’s uncertain status highlights Dodgers’ shortcomings

Clayton Kershaw is the most valuable player in baseball.

Want proof?

Think back to when you first heard or read Kershaw was injured. Recall your initial thoughts. If you’re like most people, they were probably along the lines of “the Dodgers are toast.”

No other player on a contending team would elicit such an extreme reaction, which speaks to the degree of Kershaw’s dominance.

But it also speaks to how the team is constructed.

The Dodgers might have a $250-million payroll, but if Kershaw goes down, they won’t even have a chance to win a mediocre division.

Now, it’s important to point out that the lower-back examination Kershaw was scheduled to undergo Wednesday afternoon could reveal no significant problems. Maybe the tests will prompt him to push back his upcoming start by only a couple of days.

That doesn’t change the fundamental truth about the Dodgers, which is that they can’t be without Kershaw for any extended period of time.

The Dodgers are 14-2 when Kershaw starts. Entering Wednesday, they were 29-34 when he didn’t.

There’s a reason for that.

Their lineup is shaky. So is their bullpen. Their rotation is falling apart.

This is what happens when a team hesitates to pay for high-end talent and prioritizes quantity over quality, which is what the Dodgers started to do when Andrew Friedman became their president of baseball operations.

The free-agent market once offered them the chance to add Max Scherzer or Jon Lester to their rotation. The Dodgers passed.

They could have traded for Cole Hamels last summer. They passed again.

They could have re-signed Zack Greinke in the off-season. They passed again.

The approach has produced a rotation that includes not only a teenager in Julio Urias, but also Brock Stewart, who started the season at Class A. Their most dependable starting pitcher at the moment is Kenta Maeda, who basically flunked his physical examination in the off-season.

What happened to the team’s supposed pitching depth?

It never existed, as what Friedman described as a sturdy foundation turned out to be little more than shards of glass he glued together.

Teams collect depth to safeguard against unforeseen injuries, like those that have sidelined Alex Wood and Mike Bolsinger. But depth can’t be considered depth if it’s completely unreliable.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out Brett Anderson might not make it through the season. In November, it was pointed out here that Anderson’s innings count last season was more than quadruple that of the previous season.

Anderson had back surgery in the first week of March.

As for Brandon McCarthy and Hyun-Jin Ryu, the Dodgers already knew they would spend the first half of the season recovering from major operations they underwent last year.

And if or when they return, they offer no guarantees.

McCarthy, who had reconstructive elbow surgery, has spent considerable portions of his career on the disabled list. Outside of three solid months with the New York Yankees late in 2014 that netted him a $48-million contract with the Dodgers, he has been a rather ordinary pitcher.

Ryu, on the other hand, is coming back from a labrum procedure. Although labrum surgery isn’t the career death sentence it once was, there’s a significant chance he will never be the pitcher he used to be.

In other words, Anderson, McCarthy and Ryu were the baseball equivalent of lottery tickets.

Their bullpen and lineup have also depended on similarly long odds.

They did nothing to bolster the back end of their bullpen over the off-season, figuring that among Chris Hatcher, Pedro Baez and Yimi Garcia, someone would emerge as a consistent late-inning bridge to closer Kenley Jansen. That hasn’t happened.

They tried to reinforce the middle of their lineup last year by adding Cuban defector Hector Olivera. That didn’t work. While they salvaged something from the deal — Olivera was used to acquire Wood and outfielder Trayce Thompson — they were never able to find the consistent firepower they wanted. That required them to count on Yasiel Puig or Yasmani Grandal to establish themselves as offensive forces, which also hasn’t happened.

So the Dodgers now hold their collective breath, waiting to see whether Kershaw’s back is healthy to continue carrying them.

dylan.hernandez@latimes.com

Twitter: @dylanohernandez