Blue Jays Take a Swing on Cody Ponce After MVP Season in Korea

The Toronto Blue Jays made an unexpected splash by inking right-hander Cody Ponce to a three-year, $30 million deal on December 2. It’s a move that might raise eyebrows at first glance – Ponce hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2021, and his MLB résumé to date is far from flashy. But peel back the layers, and this signing starts to make a lot more sense.

Ponce, 31, is coming off a dominant season in the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO), where he didn’t just pitch well – he was the league’s MVP. Pitching for Hanwha, he racked up a 17-1 record, a 1.89 ERA, and struck out a staggering 252 batters in under 190 innings across 29 starts. That’s not just thriving overseas – that’s owning the league.

What’s changed? For starters, his fastball has ticked up in velocity, and he’s added a split-finger pitch that’s become a legitimate weapon. That evolution in his arsenal helped turn him from a fringe MLB arm into a frontline starter in Korea, and now he’s betting – and so are the Blue Jays – that it’ll translate back to the big leagues.

Ponce was originally drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in the second round out of Cal Poly in 2015 and was once a top-10 prospect in their system. Early on, he flashed promise in the minors, posting a 2.29 ERA in his debut season and a 3.14 mark in 2017 while climbing through Class A and AA. But by 2018, his ERA had climbed to 4.36, and he was no longer viewed as a fast-rising star.

In 2019, the Brewers dealt him to the Pirates in exchange for veteran Jordan Lyles – a trade that paid off for Milwaukee, as Lyles delivered a 2.45 ERA over 11 starts and helped push the team into the postseason. For Ponce, though, it was a different story.

He made his MLB debut with Pittsburgh in 2020 and stuck around for parts of two seasons, but the results weren’t pretty. Over 20 appearances, he went 0-6 with a 7.04 ERA, struggling to find consistency or command at the highest level.

That led to a bold decision: heading overseas. Ponce spent three years in Asia, including a stint in Japan before landing in Korea. While his 2024 season in Japan ended with a 4.61 ERA, it was his performance this past year in the KBO that turned heads and reignited his MLB prospects.

Now, the Blue Jays are betting that the version of Cody Ponce we saw in Korea – the one with sharper stuff, better command, and newfound confidence – is here to stay. At 31, he’s not a prospect anymore, but he doesn’t need to be. Toronto is banking on him being a reliable mid-rotation presence or better, and with a three-year commitment, they clearly believe his resurgence is more than just a flash in the pan.

It’s a calculated risk, but one that could pay off in a big way. If Ponce brings even a portion of his KBO dominance to the AL East, the Blue Jays might have just unearthed one of the offseason’s sneakiest impact arms.