Report: Blue Jays in contact with Gallardo

Toronto Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro addressed his team's need for additional depth in the rotation earlier this week, and a former adversary from the American League Division Series could be a target.

After the Blue Jays reportedly showed strong interest in Yovani Gallardo throughout the winter, the two sides were in contact this week, according to Ben Nicholson-Smith of Sportsnet.

Gallardo's coming off a season with the Texas Rangers in which he went 13-11 with a career-low 3.42 ERA to go with a career-worst 1.42 WHIP. The 29-year-old has thrown at least 180 innings in each of the past seven seasons and hit free agency after declining a qualifying offer, tying him to draft-pick compensation.

"(Gallardo)'s the kind of guy that would make us better. He's the kind of guy you'd like to have," Shapiro said on Sportsnet 590 The Fan on Wednesday. "Whether or not, from a resource perspective, we still have enough to make a move like that, I think that’s still a variable that exists. But we do have some flexibility still. Thinking about how we use those resources is still a question."

The Blue Jays retained Marco Estrada while adding J.A. Happ, Jesse Chavez, and reliever Drew Storen into the fold this offseason. While the addition of Storen possibly opens the door for either Aaron Sanchez or Roberto Osuna to be stretched out as a starter, Shapiro remains unconvinced they have enough starting pitching.

"Depth is probably the overriding need for this team, because when you start to look at what do you do if you lose a guy for three, four weeks?" he asked. "There are a lot of spots where we don't have the right championship-caliber alternative to keep that going. I think that our team is good enough position player-wise that we can survive that - it happened last year at times - pitching wise, not so much. So it's more urgent."