Jays are interested in John Axford.
The rumor mill is revving up again, after a few slow weeks around the holiday season.
Jon Heyman tells us this:
things heating up for john axford. four teams in. blue jays are looking at the ontario native, among others.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) January 9, 2015I'll admit, I'm not exactly thrilled with the idea of adding him, but we could use more arms to compete for a spot in the pen. My worry, he walked 5.9/9 innings last season. We couldn't keep Jeremy Jeffress around because he walked too many. Career he's allowed 4.4 walks/9. He does get a lot of strikeouts, last year 10.4/9.
Axford is 31, he'll be 32 April. He has 116 career saves (if that matters to you) and 46 in 2011 for the Brewers. He can throw hard, Fangraphs lists him as averaging 94.4 mph on his fastball last year. And he is Canadian.
In other Blue Jays news, Shi Davidi tells us that the minor league deal the Jays had with outfield Ryan Kalish has fallen through. Davidi doesn't tell us why. Perhaps there is a physical issue, though since it was only a minor league contract, I don't know what sort of injury would void the contract.
Kalish would have given us some much need outfield depth. A left-handed bat who can play all 3 outfield spots, wouldn't be a bad thing to have. His career .245/.293/.350 slash line doesn't make you think you'll love to see him in the Jays outfield, but he did give us an option if one of the regular outfielder was injured.
I wonder what the problem was.
And, Jon Heyman also tweeted:
takashi toritani, ss who's played 1,444 straight games for hanshin, stayed w/ hanshin. blue jays never made official offer.
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) January 9, 2015I was sure that Alex said that the Jays had made an offer. In fact it surprised me that Alex was so clear about it, normally he's pretty hard to read. I guess it isn't important, but I would like to know if Alex was lying to us.