By Jon Weisman

One of the counterpoints to the general “Hail contract, well met” about Clayton Kershaw’s extension last week was that it’s too much money to give to someone who only pitches once every five games.

However, “once every five games” understates Kershaw’s impact on the season. Pitchers have far more interactions in a game than any other position on the field, and Kershaw, being who he is, has almost as many as anyone.

In 2013, for example, Kershaw faced 908 batters, or 182 more than the Major League leader in plate appearances, Joey Votto. Factor in that 689 of the batters Kershaw faced made outs (plus another 31 retired on the bases thanks to double-play grounders, caught stealing and pickoffs), and you can begin to see how tremendous his impact was.

Certainly, those guys didn’t make outs by themselves — outside of his 232 strikeouts, the remainder were put into play and almost entirely handled by fielders other than Kershaw, who had 27 assists in 2013. And many position players make a difference in the field as well as at the plate. But my point is, we should be far past the point of viewing starting pitchers as part-timers. (Not incidentally, this explains why they shouldn’t be counted out of the most valuable player voting.)

No one risks facing high-stress situations in baseball more often than starting pitchers. Kershaw, by avoiding them for the most part and embracing them so adroitly when they do arrive, deserves acknowledgment for that.

As for the money itself … few are under any illusions that the relative salaries of firefighters and firearmers are in moral proportion. But within a baseball context, looking at his past performance and his future projections, Kershaw’s contract passes muster (as Dave Cameron notes at Fangraphs) in this era, even with physical risk factored in. That’s the world we live in … and Clayton Kershaw, as much as anyone, deserves his rewards.