In one category, anyway, the Los Angeles Dodgers are No. 1 in Major League baseball. That would be in spending money on players.

Not that it has led to any noteworthy successes on the field. Their last championship, as well as their most recent National League pennant, was in 1988. That was so long ago that Vin Scully was a kid of 60.

Their payroll this season is on the high side of $250 million, tops in the bigs, which has led to a team with only a few more victories than defeats. Business as usual in Chavez Ravine, that is. “Millions for mediocrity” could be this club’s slogan.

One player, however, is worth every penny the Dodgers give him, and that would be pitcher Clayton Kershaw.

He is the team’s one superstar, a nearly unhittable left-hander, a three-time Cy Young Award winner, 2014 MVP, potentially one of the dozen or so greatest pitchers in baseball history — who will be paid $33 million this season.

When he pitches, the Dodgers are a very good team. When he doesn’t, they struggle to stay above .500.

They will have to do without him until after the All-Star break, now that he has gone on the disabled list with a “mild disk herniation” … and the team is looking down the barrel of a lost season.

Maybe modern medicine can somehow solve that problem over the next 15 days, but when we hear “herniated disk” we are likely to think of intense pain and a lengthy recovery — perhaps including surgery.

Kershaw can’t be replaced, in terms of value to his team, but he can be in the rotation, and the club moved on that today by trading for Bud Norris, a little right-hander who is pretty much the definition of “journeyman starting pitcher” — after compiling a career ERA of 4.43 and a record of 59-75 during seven-plus MLB seasons.

In Norris’s defense, we must note he came up with the Houston Astros as they were about to suffer through a three-season siege of wretchedness — failing to win more than 56 games in 2011, 2012 or 2013. Norris was a decent pitcher in a horrible situation, and that takes some intestinal fortitude/mental toughness.

The Dodgers will send him out against the Colorado Rockies tomorrow, and hope for the best.

The absolutely best, of course, would be a healthy Clayton Kershaw ready to throw two weeks from now.

If his achy back leads to a longer absence, we can pretty much assume the Dodgers can be dismissed as a playoffs team, and that 28-season run without a championship will for sure be stretched to 29.