Inner Half

180.2 innings.
1.89 ERA.
252 strikeouts.
41 walks.
128 hits.
17 wins.
1 loss. 

Reigning Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) MVP Cody Ponce just turned those numbers into 3 years and $30M with the Toronto Blue Jays. It’s the largest contract for a pitcher returning from Korea, doubling the previous $15M record held by Erick Fedde.

Fresh off a World Series appearance and the signing of Dylan Cease (whom I wrote about here), the Blue Jays are all in, and they are spending. It seemed like their rotation was already much-improved, so why did they make this signing? I’ll explain why I think this signing could be looked back upon as a massive bargain for the Blue Jays.

Cody Ponce?

If you’ve never heard of Cody Ponce before this, you’re far from alone. 

After a collegiate career at Cal Poly, Ponce was drafted in the 2nd round of the 2015 draft by the Milwaukee Brewers. 

After some up and down minor league years from 2015-2018, Ponce was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2019 in exchange for Jordan Lyles. The Pirates had him pitch in AA and AAA that year, leading to his debut year of 2020, where because of COVID-19, teams started the year with expanded, 30-man rosters versus the traditional 26-man rosters. In 5 appearances (3 starts), he pitched 17 innings to a solid 3.18 ERA and 1.059 WHIP. 

Sticking with the Pirates for 2021, Ponce imploded in 15 appearances (2 starts), pitching to a 7.04 ERA and 1.748 WHIP in 38.1 innings. He struck out just 36 batters and allowed 56 hits. He didn’t pitch well in AAA that year either. 

It was 2022 when Ponce made the transition to Asia, first for the Nippon Ham Fighters of the NPB, the premier baseball league in Japan.

In 2022, he made 14 starts, pitching 83.1 innings to a 3.35 ERA (107 ERA-) and 3.60 FIP (116 FIP-), striking out 19.2% of batters and walking just 6.7%. He actually threw a no-hitter against the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks on August 27!

However, 2023 (110 ERA-) yielded more mediocre results, while 2024 (229 ERA-) saw him crumble, the latter year also seeing him change uniforms to the Rakuten Golden Eagles. He very much hovered around being an average to below-average pitcher in Japan. It wouldn’t be until 2025 and his move to Korea where Cody Ponce would change the trajectory of his career.

With Hanwha of the KBO, Ponce started 29 games, totaling 180.2 innings. He pitched to a 1.89 ERA (44 ERA-) and 2.15 FIP (49 FIP-), striking out 36.2% of hitters and walking 5.9%. He allowed 128 hits with just 10 being home runs. I’m not one for boasting a pitcher’s record, but 17-1 means you did a pretty good job helping your team win. 

He led the league in wins, ERA and strikeouts, the last of which he set the KBO record for with 252. He’d win the Choi Dong-won Award (top KBO pitcher) unanimously, and the MVP Award was the cherry on top.

Perhaps coupled with a change in mindset or confidence, Ponce is said to have raised his fastball velocity to around 95mph, while adding a splitter to an already-diverse repertoire. He has the curveball, slider and cutter already (from David Adler, MLB.com). He’s the latest example of pitchers re-inventing themselves. Merrill Kelly and Erick Fedde are said to have learned new pitches overseas before coming back and performing well in MLB. A great read comes from Ben Lindbergh’s and Travis Sawchik’s The MVP Machine and former MLB Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer, who was written about in detail learning new pitches from scratch in an effort to perform better, something that hadn’t traditionally been thought of as possible in older baseball times.

Ponce also won’t be the first pitcher to transform his game over in Asia before coming back to MLB. Erick Fedde and Merrill Kelly are recent examples that have parlayed that growth into multiyear MLB contracts and a solid track record since. Having pitched with Washington as a swingman from 2017-2022 to little success outside of a 2019 World Series win, Fedde left for the KBO for the 2023 season. In 30 starts and 180.1 innings, he put up a 2.00 ERA and 0.95, striking out 209 and walking 35. Kelly, on the other hand, left the United States having not made it past AAA Durham with Tampa Bay. After being drafted in the 8th round in 2010, Kelly spent 5 years grinding through the minor leagues. In 2015, he departed for the KBO, where he managed to eclipse the 200-strikeout mark in back-to-back seasons in 2016 and 2017. His ERA numbers sat anywhere from 4.13 in 2015 to 3.60 in 2017. Both Fedde and Kelly have carved out careers in the MLB since then. Ponce’s stuff and potential upside may be higher.

While there’s no clear-cut “here’s what to expect from Cody Ponce” right now, one thing we can say is that he’s not the same pitcher from the 2020-21 Pirates. We’ll see a back-end starter with clear swing-and-miss stuff. Sure, the KBO isn’t on the same offensive level as the MLB, but the numbers don’t lie with Ponce, and time will tell whether that stuff plays up to MLB hitters.

Why the Blue Jays signed another arm

The amount Ponce is being signed for ($30M) over 3 years tells me that the Blue Jays want him to start games. Who wouldn’t after what he just showed he can do in that spot?

This also tells me that the Blue Jays want to capitalize on the position they got themselves into last season. As a result of the Ponce and Cease signings, they bump Eric Lauer and, possibly, José Berríos to the bullpen as well. Berríos is in the middle of a long-term deal (through 2028), yet he’s still only 31 and could hold trade value if the Jays find a suitable return. He’s a 3-4 ERA type of pitcher that could be a reliable innings-eater at the back of the rotation.

More importantly though, the Blue Jays are building their own rotation the way they want to. With Cease, Trey Yesavage, Kevin Gausman, Shane Bieber, and now Ponce, this has turned into one of the more formidable rotations in the game on paper. Coupled in the bullpen with high-leverage arms Louis Varland, Jeff Hoffman and the all-but-guaranteed free agent relief pitcher signings they make and this team could limit runs like none other. 

I won’t get too in the weeds about Toronto’s finances, but they are definitely pushing the line of the luxury tax penalties. With FanGraph’s RosterResource now projecting their 2026 payroll to be $267M (their final 2025 payroll was $258M), they move into the second luxury tax threshold. To keep it simple, this means they’ll have to pay the league for holding such a large payroll, but their thought process is that it’ll be well worth it if they can field another great playoff team and, just maybe, take the World Series this time around. 

To conclude, Cody Ponce could be a bargain for the price Toronto got him for. The improvement he’s made is undeniable and he could be a huge reason Toronto gets back to the promised land in 2026.