The Los Angeles Dodgers were expected to address their relief corps prior to the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline, and they did just that with the acquisition of John Axford from the Toronto Blue Jays.
Axford further lengthens the bullpen as a veteran with closing experience, but the club still lacks a bonafide, traditional eighth inning setup man. More impactful relievers such as Zach Britton, Brad Hand and Keone Kela were traded elsewhere for hefty prospect packages.
After missing out on the aforementioned names, Dodgers general manager Farhan Zaidi hinted that the club could take an unorthodox approach in how the handle the late innings and get the ball to closer Kenley Jansen, via Rowan Kavner of Dodger Insider:
“I don’t know that we’re going to evolve into a team that has a pure eighth inning guy as opposed to kind of matching up and playing out the end of games that way,” Zaidi said.