Dodgers notes: Clayton Kershaw singing, Ron Roenicke joins front office

With the Dodgers’ first workout for pitchers and catchers set for later today, here’s a palate cleanser of links, news, and notes from this week.

Clayton Kershaw was a guest, along with Brad Paisley, on The Artist and The Athlete with Lindsay Czarniak podcast, during which Kershaw said “I Believe I Can Fly” as his encore song if he was a musician.

Links & news

• The Dodgers play the Royals in Surprise on Friday, March 5, a noon PT start. That game will be nationally televised by ESPN and ESPN Deportes, the network announced on Wednesday.
• In his spring training preview, Jeff Passan at ESPN says, “If there is a great on-field storyline of the 2021 season, it’s Los Angeles vs. San Diego.”
• A potential role for Gavin Lux and sorting out the bullpen are among the Dodgers’ questions Pedro Moura at The Athletic tries to answer in his spring preview.
• J.P. Hoornstra at the Orange County Register picks his non-roster invitees to watch in Dodgers camp.
• Eric Nusbaum at Defector eviscerates Major League Baseball for its takeover of the minor leagues.
• Old friend Jake McGee, whose two-year, $7 million contract with San Francisco was finalized on Wednesday, has a club option for 2023 as well.
• Ron Roenicke, who was drafted by the Dodgers, played his first three major league seasons for Los Angeles, and who coached in the majors and minors from 1992-98 then again as third base coach for the final seven weeks of the 2015 season, is reportedly back in the organization as a special assistant in the front office, per Tara Sullivan of the Boston Globe: