The Dodgers have struck a deal to acquire righty John Axford from the Blue Jays, according to Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.ca (via Twitter). Righty Corey Copping will go to Toronto in return, per MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (via Twitter).
Axford, 35, has a 4.41 ERA, 8.8 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, 1.06 HR/9, and 53.3% groundball rate in 51 innings this year for the Blue Jays. Axford had signed a minor league deal with the Blue Jays in February after a rough final season in Oakland that included over a month on the shelf with a shoulder strain. He reinforces a Dodgers pen that has been relying on Kenley Jansen, Scott Alexander, and Daniel Hudson in the late innings, with Pedro Baez coming off the DL about a week ago. Josh Fields and Tony Cingrani are among those still on the DL. The Dodgers made their biggest July splashes in the middle infield, with the earlier acquisition of Manny Machado as well as the pickup of Brian Dozier today.
As for the Blue Jays, they’ve shipped off Roberto Osuna, J.A. Happ, Aaron Loup, and Seunghwan Oh in addition to Axford as part of a month-long dismantling. Copping, the return for Axford, is a 24-year-old righty who recently earned a promotion to Triple-A.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Slim pickins
I believe he was last traded in 1964, right after Dr. Strangelove.
That trade sure bombed out….
Meh
Yes! another good pitching prospect comes to the Jays.
Copping is about right for a guy like Axford.
Oh god
Awesome pickup five yrs ago
Lmao. 3 minutes until the 4PM trade deadline.
Jansen’s replacement! I can already taste the champagne!
Dodgers get…a guy!
What a great trade if they would wait he be on the waiver wire next week
Axford would not clear waivers or even make it low enough to the Dodgers
LOL
I bet he won’t make the playoff roster
have you watched Axford pitch this year? he’s arguably better than half their Penn right now. and come playoff time, teams can always use an experienced veteran Penn presence.
As a Jays fan I can tell you Axford was great the first 5-6 weeks of the season. The bullpen was overused thanks to the starting pitchers on the Jays bowing out early in games. When given ample rest, Axford is fine.
Just what we needed, another barely warm body.
Stupid. Gotta love this front office always thinking they are smarter than everyone else. I don’t like the moves they made today when you think about the Diamondbacks moves. We needed pitching.
I think your the one who thinks they are smarter. The Dodgers bullpen is not a massive hole that people make it out to be. It has been great for 2 months now and did you see that game last week where they went 8 scoreless
Friedman’s wife is that you on a burner account? Calm down dude I wasn’t talking about you was I? Lol. No their bullpen hasn’t been bad and I’m not really too worried about the bullpen but our starting pitching worries me! Kershaw is fragile and isn’t himself, Stripling is going to start to tire because he hasn’t pitched this many inning and the rest of our rotations is up and down and always hurt.
Ah ok so throw a hissy fit miltiple times and then when someone repsonds you come with “you must be the GMs wife”. The starting rotation has the best ERA in the NL bit keep crying
Kenley I think you sat behind me when we played the Cubs. Did you have a neck tattoo and puke six cheladas onto your mom in the fourth inning. Whassup bro?!?!
Yeah that was me
They paid a dollar for a dollar-fifty value. Makes it a bargain in their book. Came with fries, too.
You also need to remember, Julio Urias, tony cingrani, josh fields are coming back. And when ryu comes back we’ll have 7 healthy starters for 5 spots. One of maeda bueler or wood is going to the bullpen. Not too worried about the pen rn even tho it would have been nice to get a guy like Britton
I wouldn’t get too excited by the return of Ryu or Urias at this point. They both have to show they can return to form, especially Urias. The Dodgers still need someone to take the pressure off Jansen. Who they really needed was Kela, not the burnt out shell of a pitcher they got in Axford.
This guy is still playing? How did that happen?
And to think that the Dodgers were in on every other reliever and starter that was moved………and they get freaking Axford….. if only it was 2011……
Absolutely baffled by this trade and by this front office once again.
It’s 2018 – if you’re still baffled by what the FO is doing, then that’s a reflection of you, not the FO.
Pretty sure you’re baffled on a general basis.
Likely being brought in as a lefty specialist. Also hasnt had a bad July..just blew up in May/June
He is a lefty now?
Haha whoops..I meant he will face lefties
But that’s what lefties do…or does he have reverse splits?
Not a bad thought. After steadily declining as a RHP the last few years, maybe it’s time to mix it up and start throwing southpaw. Could work.
When he lost the facial hair he was robbed of his powers.
Jays also shipped Axford to the Dodgers – Toronto is selling guys off faster than headlines can be written about them.
I wish the Jays had dismantled more but I guess there wasn’t a market for other Jays warm bodies at the moment: Clippard, Martin, Maile, Estrada, Garcia, Morales, Smoak, Granderson, Pompey, Mckinney, Urena…etc etc.
I say get rid of them all, let the rebuild be deep and thorough.
Perhaps we’ll see a Jays trade or two in August.
I doubt there was much, if any, interest in Martin, Garcia, or Pompey. I agree with your thinking though.
We might still hear about a Granderson trade, there were a number of rumors on him.
Martin, Garcia, Morales, and Estrada I just don’t see anyone having much interest in. Martin is a part time player making $20M, Morales is an overpaid DH, Garcia has been largely terrible, and Estrada is hurt.
The young guys… meh… you’d likely be trading them just for the sake of trading them, since what you’d get back would be basically the same type of players.
I’m a little surprised no-one seemed interested in Maille or Clippard.
At this point I doubt we’ll see any August trades from the Jays given their injury situation.
They should be looking to deal Solarte and Granderson in August regardless of their injury situation. The Jays have plenty of young, albeit questionable, infielders they can give some time to. They should also be looking to deal Maile to make room for Danny Jansen. I have a feeling management want Jansen to remain in AAA to due to service time. Problem is, Jansen needs time to work with Martin who’s entering his final year in 2019.
Jays will attempt to pitch Estrada in-case he can get hot and somewhat attractive to contending teams needing an arm. Doubt they’ll be able to unload him. Garcia’s done. Clippard maybe.
I would be trading for Martin if I was a GM. He is actually almost reaching his War value ( 3.2 War the last two years and being paid 40 M) That is not including any framing value he adds and making pitchers around him better. He is a clutch hitter and would be great in the post season.
And… This is why you’re not a GM… I would trade Martin in a heartbeat. He should be making 20% of his contract. Can’t wait for his and Tulowitzki’s contract to be off the books.
That’s not the only reason I’m not a GM. Lol. Jays would have to eat half his salary over his remaining contract but i would take him for a middling prospect for sure. I would take Tulo off their hands too. Same 50% contract retained for the remainder of his contract for a low minor prospect. Done!
Not a big fan of this trade but anything is better than Baez.
Loup is pretty “meh”, but he can be a decent LOOGy at times. One thing to keep an eye on is that he does have a tendency to give out a lot of free passes, with an alarming number of them coming in the form of accidental bean balls.
The return was equally “meh” though, as far as I can tell from scouting the stat line (literally never heard of the guy) so Philly fans shouldn’t be too upset, other than I suppose the feeling that the team didn’t do enough to improve.
What a joke. Team needs a quality bridge to Jansen and their solution is to add more bats to an already crowded lineup. Genius.
This guy’s having a decent year. We’ll see!
I always liked axford, too bad I can’t anymore
I liked him for about 10 minutes then got over it.
Well, you Axford it.
They say he’s lost it, but Axford’s still got the chops….
Derrick Turnbow wasn’t available?
That didn’t start off well for him.