Blue Jays Reportedly Sign Munenori Kawasaki To Minor League Deal

The Toronto Blue Jays have signed former Seattle Mariners infielder Munenori Kawasaki to a minor league contract, according to a Japanese website (via this English NPB site). My very limited comprehension of Japanese tells me that he is on his way to report to Dunedin. This is really a minor move, there is little chance that Kawasaki will make it to the big club unless there are major injuries.

Munenori Kawasaki, 31, headed over the Pacific in 2012 after playing 11 seasons for Daiei and Softbank of the Nippon Professional league. Of the stats available on Baseball-Reference, he hit .295/.344/.377 in his NPB career. With the Mariners last season he played in 61 games (115 PA) and hit .192/.257/.202. So basically he is a no-hit infielder who will probably end up with the Buffalo Bisons or even the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

Kawasaki, despite a lackluster major league career so far, is pretty GIF-able. I'll send you to Lookout Landing for most of the GIFs but here is my favourite of him mounting Casper Wells:

As far as I remember, the Blue Jays' last Japanese signing was Tomo Ohka back in 2007. That didn't really work out that well, unfortunately.